276 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



(except locally) and may be considered as wanderings rather than as 

 definite migrations. 



CENTROPUS MONACHUS MONACHUS Ruppell 



Centropus monachus Ruppell, N. Wirbelth., Vog., p. 57, pi. 21, fig. 2, 1837: 

 Kulla, North Ethiopia. 



Specimens collected: 



Male adult, northeast Lake Abaya, Ethiopia, March 16, 1912. 

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

 Male, immature, Gato River near Gardula, Ethiopia, April 17, 

 1912. 



Soft parts : Iris, scarlet. 



The taxonomy and nomenclature of the races of the blue-headed 

 coucal have been misunderstood in so many different ways that the 

 literature of the species is very confusing. ' The trouble began with 

 the description of a new species by Reichenow ^^ who gave it the 

 name -flschen and, it must be admitted, wrote a quite inadequate 

 diagnosis of it. The type came from Niakatschi, southeast of Lake 

 Victoria. 



Zedlitz ^° briefly reviewed the races of this bird and recognized 

 four forms — monachus, occidentalism angolensis, and cupreicaudus. 

 He did not mention fscheri or dispose of it as a synonym, and it is 

 therefore to be supposed that he considered it as specifically distinct. 

 In 1911 Neumann ^^ described a bird from the Bahr-el-Ghazal under 

 the name heuglini. There the matter rested until four years later 

 Claude Grant ^- studied this coucal and decided that occidentalism 

 angolensis, and heugUni were all the same and that all three were 

 synonyms of -fischeHm which name he then supplied to the blue- 

 headed coucals of the upper Nile Valley, the Sudan, to the east 

 shore of Lake Victoria, and west to northern Angola and to the 

 Gold Coast. Sclater . and Praed ^^ followed Grant, but Gylden- 

 stolpe ^^ wrote that while the material available to him was not 

 sufficient to attempt a revision, yet it did not confirm Grant's 

 conclusions. 



Bannermann ^° carefully reviewed the systematics of the G. uion- 

 achus group, and, partly guided by a letter from Oscar Neumann, 

 treated flscheri as a distinct species and resurrected the names that 

 Grant had sunk into synonymy, recognizing five forms (the four 



"Journ. f. Ornith., 1887, p. 57. 



«»I(lem, 1910, pp. 741-742. 



SI Verb. v. Intern. Ornith. Kongr. for 1910 [published 1911], p. 504. 



82 Ibis, 1915, pp. 421-422. 



MIdem, 1919, p. 646. 



^ Kungl. Sv. Vet. Alcad. Handlgr., 1924, p. 251. 



» Rev. Zool. Afr., vol. 10, 1922, pp. 130-132. 



