158 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



by Sclater.*^- The difference between it and varius is an average 

 rather than absolute one. The typical form has a wing length of 

 97-106 (male), 97.5-111 millimeters (female), while Meinertz- 

 hagen '^^ gives the corresponding measurements for alJenbyi as 

 102-111 (male), 10^112 millimeters (female). Mearns' birds are 

 all of the typical form as may be seen from their wing measure- 

 ments: Male, 97, 99; female, 97.5, 105.5, and 111 millimeters, re- 

 spectively. The largest female is intermediate and might be iden- 

 tified as allevhyi just as well as not. However, in view of the great 

 distance between Hor, Kenya Colony, and the Nile delta of Egj^pt, 

 it seems better to consider it merely an unusually large example of 

 varms. The two races are alike in every respect except size. 



The newly hatched chick is covered with down which is whitish, 

 slightly tinged (perhaps stained) with pale buff on the lateral parts 

 of the under side ; the forehead and lores are very pale buffy white ; 

 the rest of the upper parts are mottled blackish and pale buffy, the 

 feathers being black, broadly tipped with buffy, the latter color most 

 pronounced on the lower back and rump, palest on the crown, nape, 

 and interscapulars. The bird was with the adult male when col- 

 lected, a fact which suggests that in this species, as in so many others 

 of its group, the care of the eggs and young is assumed, at least in 

 part, by the male. 



Birds in fresh plumage have the breast much more suffused with 

 tawny than do individuals in worn feathering; the color, being con- 

 fined to the apical parts of the feathers, disappears with abrasion, 

 leaving the breast much whiter in appearance. 



The Juvenal plumage resembles that of the adult but lacks the 

 black band on the crown and the broad line from the bill through the 

 eye to the posterior margin of the auriculars, and has the cheeks 

 grayish brown like the crown. 



There is a curious variation in the coloring of the primaries. Most 

 birds have the outer six primaries fuscous black on their outer webs 

 and have a white patch on the outer web of the seventh. Occasion- 

 ally, however, birds have the whitish patch on the sixth remex. 



The molt of the primaries begins with the innermost and pro- 

 ceeds towards the outside, simultaneously in both wings. 



A series of 11 birds from Madagascar show no constant differences 

 from a group of 16 African examples. 



Doctor Mearns wrote in his notes that, " * * * at Hor, in 

 central-northern British East Africa these birds were breeding in 

 June, 1912, but I could not find the eggs ; although I caught a chick 

 recently from the ^ggP 



"-Syst. Avium Ethiop., 1924. 

 "Ibis, 1922, p. 7.3. 



