BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 253 



on the primaries. It must be admitted, however, that observations 

 on the molt of living young birds are needed to corroborate all this. 

 If it is eventually shown to be true (as it seems to be from an ex- 

 amination of skins), it would constitute a very peculiar type of 

 incomplete post ju venal molt, extending from the body down the 

 radio-ulnar part of the alar tract and not affecting the manus. 



CRINIFER ZONURUS (Riippell) 



Chizaerhis zonurus Ruppell, N. Wirbelth., Vog., p. 9, pi. 4, 1835: Temben 

 Province, Ethiopia. 



Specimens collected: 



Male, Hawash Kiver, Ethiopia, February 11, 1912. 



The Abyssinian gray plantain eater occui's from Bogosland, 

 Eritrea, Sennar, and Ethiopia, south to the Bahr el Ghazal, Uganda, 

 western Kenya Colony (Kavirondo and Kisii), northwestern Tan- 

 ganyika Territory (Kome, Mwanza, Kageyi, and Bukoba), and the 

 adjacent areas of Ruanda and Urundi to the northern end of Lake 

 Tanganyika (Luvungi), Sclater ^ gives only a very incomplete 

 statement of its range, not recording it south of Uganda in spite 

 of numerous records published prior to 1924.^ 



In the whole of its range it is local and therefore seems rela- 

 tively uncommon in collections. Thus, Von Heuglin found it in 

 pairs or small groups in thickly wooded gorges. Riippell found 

 it always near streams bordered by high trees. Neumann met with 

 it but once on his expedition through Shoa and southern Ethiopia, 

 at Godjeb Valley between Kaffa and Djimma, while Erlanger never 

 saw it at all. Neumann ® corrected one important matter with regard 

 to Reichenow's statement of the range of this species when he showed 

 that the record from Sheikh, Somaliland, did not apply to zonwrus 

 but to G orythalxoides leucog aster. Crinifer zonurus does not occur 

 in the whole of Somaliland as far as known. However, Neumann 

 w^rote that it was also absent from the Hawash district, Ethiopia, 

 a statement that is hard to reconcile with the specimen collected on 

 the Hawash River by Mearns. It seems that the species is absent in 

 the eastern part of the Hawash basin, but its exact distributional 

 limits are not loiown. Zedlitz ^" recorded it from Anseba east of 

 Cheren, and from Ela Bered, and said that it occurred in the Erit- 

 rean inland highland district, not on the coastal lowlands except in 



^Syst. Avium Ethiop., 1024, p. 195. 



» See Reichenow, Thlorwelt Ost-Afrikas, vol. 2, VOgel, 1895, pp. 101-102 : Bukoba and 

 Kageyi, Tanganyika Territory ; Neumann, Nov. Zool., vol. 15, 1908, p. 367 : Kavirondo 

 and Lake Victoria ; Sassi, Ann. K. K. Naturhist. Ilofmus., vol. 28, 1912, p. 375 ; Urundi, 

 etc. 



' Journ. f. Ornith., 1904, p. 378. 



"Idem, 1910, pp. 739-740. 



