BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 137 



series available, but Van Someren ' writes that it is largely barred 

 above with black, buff, and rufous ; the primaries are brownish black 

 with bars of buff on their outer webs and tii^s, Avliile the secondaries 

 are darker, barred with buft'y, freckled with blackish, and apically 

 tinged with rufous; the breast feathers are blackish, barred with 

 buffy white : lower breast with a blue wash ; abdomen grayish. 



The immature plumage is not particularly distinct as it combines 

 to some extent the characters of the preceding and succeeding stages. 

 The head, chin, and upper throat are still covered (though sparsely) 

 with down, the upper parts otherwise are practically as in the adult, 

 but the feathers of the back and interscapulars have wide brownish 

 tips, which wear off, leaving the feathers as in the adult. The mantle 

 and breast have the long hackle feathers with white shaft stripes, 

 the abdomen and rest of the underparts are as in the adult stage. 



One of the females from the Endoto Mountains is in the immature 

 plumage. It has the breast as in the juvenal birds; that is, barred 

 black and buffy white, but amongst these feathers are numbers of 

 the long hackles. These last are of considerable interest in that they 

 indicate that the broad white shaft stripes develop by a longitudinal 

 stretching and fusing of white transverse bars as the feathers become 

 longer. Several of them have a terminal transverse widening which 

 really amounts to nothing less than a transverse bar, and a short 

 distance proximal to these is a pair of lateral, pointed outgrowths of 

 the shaft stripe, suggesting more fully absorbed bars. Furthermore, 

 in fresh hackles the shaft stripe does not extend to the tips of the 

 feathers but is ended subterminally by a black bar which, in t'lrn, 

 is apicall}^ margined with white, the last forming a true, distinct, 

 though somewhat desiccated white bar. The tips of the feathers 

 wear off down to, and including, the transverse terminations of the 

 shaft stripes. This condition is also true of the mantle feathers. 



This immature bird has the outer edge of the outer secondaries 

 more bluish, less purplish, than in adult birds. 



The birds collected by Mearns are smaller than examples from 

 farther south (short distance south of the Guaso Nyiro). The 

 northern specimens have wings of 300-302 (male) and 280 (female) 

 as against 309-320 (male) and 291 (female) in the southern ones. 

 Southern birds also have slightly smaller bills, as follows : Northern 

 males, 26-30 millimeters ; southern males, 31-31.5 millimeters ; north- 

 ern females, 27.5 millimeters ; southern females, 28.5 millimeters. 



This handsome fowl was noted at several localities during the 

 course of the expedition : Boran, lower Chaffa village, June 23. 1 

 seen; Chaffa, June 24-25, several feathers found; dry river south of 

 Hor, July 1-2 feathers found; Indunumara Mountains, July 13, 20 



' Journ. E. Afr. and Uganda Nat. Hist. Soc, 1925, pp. 18-19. 



