BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 37 



The greater flamingo appears to be rare in Ethiopia, the smaller 

 Phoeniconaias Tnmor being the common species in that country. 

 Thus, Neumann ^^ writes that at Hora Schale only one of the greater 

 flamingo was observed among countless thousands of the lesser species. 



Order ANSERIFORMES 

 Family ANATIDAE 



ANAS UNDULATA RtJPPELLI Blyth 



Anas riippclU Blyth, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng., vol. 24, p. 265, 1856: " Central 

 Africa," i. e., Inner N. E. Africa (Neumann). 



Specimens collected: 



Two adult males, Arussi Plateau, Ethiopia, February 14, 1912. 

 One adult unsexed, Arussi Plateau, Ethiopia, February 14, 1912. 

 One adult male, Arussi Plateau, Ethiopia, February 16, 1912. 

 One unsexed, Arussi Plateau (10,000 feet), Ethiopia, February 

 26, 1912. 



The species Anas undulata ranges over a great portion of the 

 African continent with surprisingly little local variation. The two 

 recognized races, the typical, southern undulata^ and the northeast- 

 ern rupj^elli^ are only barely separable, not too well defined. 



There has been a curious misunderstanding about these races. 



Blyth described ruypeUl in 1856 as a species. When working 

 over the ducks for the Catalog of Birds in the British Museum in 

 1895, Salvadori decided the form was not valid. It remained as a 

 synonym until 1904 when Neumann ^' got together a good series of 

 both northern and southern birds, found a slight difference between 

 them, and reinstated rilppeUi as a race of undulata. 



Doctor Phillips, in his monograph of the ducks, does not recognize 

 rilppelli and calls all the birds undulata. Sclater ^^ however, follows 

 Neumann and recognizes the two forms. 



Reichenow ^° took Neumann's results and carelessly transposed 

 them, giving undulata the characters of rilppelli and vice versa. 

 Then Sassi, reporting on the birds collected by Grauer in the eastern 

 Belgian Congo ^^ reported a South African specimen with green 

 specula, evidently under the impression that the southern birds had 

 bluish specula. He obviously had the characters of the two races 

 transposed following Reichenow. Phillips, noting the comment of 



""Journ. f. Ornith., 1904, p. 3.38. 



" Idem, 1904, p. .-{27. 



^ Syst. Avium Ethiopicarum, 1924, p. 42. 



^oVcigol Afrikas, vol. 3, Nachtrag, 1005, p. 800. 



«»Annak'n k. k. Naturhist. Ilofmuseum. Wieu, vol. 2G, 1912, p. 358. 



