118 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



whitish. The forehead in young birds is lighter, less blackish, more 

 brownish than in older individuals, while the crown and occii^ut are 

 lighter, more rufous, less fuscous in the latter than in the former. 

 This is particularly true of the females. 



The two Juvenal specimens of ogoensis are remarkable in that the 

 forehead is not black in them, but brownish, only slightly darker 

 than the crown. Unfortunately these birds are unsexed. Whether 

 this is a character of that race I can not say, but Mackworth- 

 Praed ^^ makes no mention of it in his review. Neumann, in describ- 

 ing gofanus^ writes that the main difference between this race and 

 castaneicollis is that old males of the former lack the black forehead, 

 while in castaneicoUis and hottegi even young males and to an extent 

 old females have a distinct black forehead. It may be, then, that the 

 two young ogoensis with brownish foreheads are females. 



Young birds have the feathers of the back (posterior to the in- 

 terscapulars), rump, upper tail coverts, and rectrices narrowly 

 banded with whitish, the bands edged with blackish. This condition 

 is also found in some adults but in old birds these feathers vary 

 greatly. In some there is no sign of any barring; the feathers are 

 uniformly dark, dull, grayish, olive brow^n with narrow fuscous shaft 

 streaks, the feathers terminally margined with lighter grayish 

 brown ; in other specimens the shafts are white with a subterminal 

 tear-shaped white spot, the shaft and the spot bordered by fuscous 

 and each feather with a subterminal V-shaped whitish bar. 



Other variable characters in adult birds are the lores, the super- 

 ciliary stripes, the amount of white on the upper part and of black 

 on the breast. The lores vary from pale buff, each feather narrowly 

 edged with blackish, to almost wholly black. The superciliaries are 

 black in some, black in their anterior halves and brown posteriorly 

 in others. The amount of white on the upper parts depends on the 

 width of the white marks on the feathers. Mackworth-Praed, 

 in his review of the African francolins, records, '"^Francolinius 

 castaneicollis subsp. 1 " ranging from Harrar district eastward where 

 it merges with ogoensis. It is said to differ from hottegl by having 

 less white on the back, the ui:>per parts generally duskier and less 

 brownish, and the chestnut of the neck somewhat paler. Judging 

 by the amount of variation in the white markings of the upper back 

 in the present series, I feel that this character is not a reliable crite- 

 rion for the establishment of races. As regards the coloration of the 

 breast, the black markings become less prominent with age; old 

 males have the breast almost uniform brownish. What really hap- 

 pens is that the black markings become more basal, more restricted 

 distally, with successive molts, and in old birds are practically com- 



"^Ibis, 1922, p. 118. 



