314 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Meinertzhagen writes that shelleyi is a small edition of pekinensii 

 " In fresh plumage the head and upper parts are as in pekinensis^ 

 but with slightly less sheen on the mantle. The center of the back 

 is more or less sufi'used with dark blackish blue, which almost en- 

 tirely wears off as the season advances * * *." I have compared 

 a series of both and can find no difference in the dorsal sheen, and 

 Baker ^^ makes no mention of any gloss in his description of pekin- 

 ensis. In fact, from the limited material examined (four sJielleyi 

 and eight pekmensk) , I should say that, if the very slight difference 

 in the amount of sheen on the mantle were to be considered signifi- 

 cant, it would be the reverse of Meinertzhagen's observations. 



Males have, on the average, heavier shaft stripes on the throat 

 feathers than females. 



Meinertzhagen writes that the Usambara Mountains, Tanganyika 

 Territory, are the southern limit of the range of shelleyi and that 

 a swift in the British Museum from Zomba, Nyasaland, probably 

 constitutes another race, having a wing measurement of but 141 

 millimeters (as against 148-165 millimeters in shelleyi.) However, 

 Grant ®' writes that this bird from Zomba is a young individual, 

 and includes the region south to Nyasaland in the range of this sub- 

 species. Micropus ajms shelleyi occurs, then, from northern Ethio- 

 pia, through the interior of Kenya Colony (chiefly to the west of 

 the Rift Valley but also east to Kilimanjaro and the Usambara 

 Mountains in northern Tanganyika Territory), south to Nj^asaland. 



Its status in the Sudan is doubtful, according to Sclater and 

 Mackworth-Praed ^^ who write that, although Antinori is said to 

 have obtained specimens at Berber, which he called Cypselus duhius, 

 he wrote ^^ that they were, " * * * equal in size to C. murarius " 

 {=M. a. apus), and that, therefore, the synonymic disposition of 

 dubius is rather uncertain, and hence the hesitancy of crediting 

 shelleyi to the Sudanese avifauna. 



The measurements of the birds collected are as follows: Wing, 

 157 (male), 151 (female); tail, 71 (male), 72 (female); culmen, 6 

 (male), 5.5 millimeters (female). 



MICROPUS MELBA AFRICANUS (Temminck) 



Cypselus alpinus africaniis Temminck, Man. Orn., p. 270, 1815: South Africa. 



Specitnens collected: 



Male, Gato River near Gardula, Ethiopia, April 1, 1912. 



In giving the range of this subspecies Sclater ^ records it as 

 " doubtful " from Ethiopia and otherwise limits it to the mountains 



»« Fauna Brit. India, Birds, vol. 4, p. 326, 1927, 



»^Ibis, 3 915, p. 315. 



»8 Idem, 1919, p. G52. 



"»Cat. coll. Uccelli, 18G4, p. 25. 



1 Syst. Avium Ethiop., 1924, p. 259. 



