BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 303 



The single specimen collected agrees with others from the Blue 

 and White Niles and with the type specimen. The type is somewhat 

 faded, but if due allowance be made for tliis, no important differ- 

 ences between it and the other examples mentioned can be discerned. 



Sclater =^ lists three races of Buho africanus. I have seen material 

 of but two of these, but judging from the trend of the literature 

 it would appear that Sclater's arrangement is substantially sound. 

 The three races are as follows: 



1. B. a. africanus. — South Africa north to Angola, the Belgian 

 Congo, Nyasaland, and Tanganyika Territory, to Kenya Colony 

 and Uganda. In the latter two countries it merges into cinerascens, 

 but the intergradation is so gradual that it is quite difficult to tell 

 where one ends and the other begins. Thus, for example, Lonn- 

 berg ^^ records cinerascens from the thornbush country north of 

 Guaso Nyiro, below Chanler Falls. The single specimen obtained 

 was small (wing 302 millimeters), although a female, and there- 

 fore was identified as belonging to the northern race. On the other 

 hand, Van Someren "^^ records the typical subspecies from Nairobi 

 and Nakuru, and does not mention cinerascens from south of the 

 Kerio Kiver and southern Turkanaland in Uganda. 



2. B. a. cinerascens. — Sierra Leone to Nigeria east through the 

 Upper Guinean savannah region through the Sudan to Ethiopia, 

 Eritrea, Somaliland, and northern Uganda and Kenya Colony, 

 merging with africanus in the last two. According to Van 

 Someren ^° cinerascens occurs in the Suk country and the West Nile 

 Province of Uganda. 



This race differs from afHcanus in being smaller (wing 290-325 

 millimeters as against 325 to 360 millimeters in the typical race). 

 Claude Grant ®^ writes that Asio nmculatus amerimnus Oberholser 

 (not a/meHcanus as he misquotes it) appears to be a synonym of 

 cinerascens. The type of anie^^vrnmus came from Durban, Natal, so 

 it must be considered a pure synonym of africanus. Doctor Abbott 

 collected one bird, referred to amerimnus by Oberholser, on Mount 

 Kilimanjaro. Apparently Grant mistook this bird to be the type, 

 but even there he is wrong in considering it the same as cinerascens. 



3. B. a. fnilesi. — Southern Arabia. This race I have not seen, but 

 according to Reichenow ^^ it resembles cinerascens but has the upper- 

 parts and underpartff washed with rusty yellow. 



The spotted eagle owl is widely distributed in the region covered 

 by the present report, being found in a great variety of ecological 



^■8 Syst. Avium Ethlop., 1924, pp. 245-246. 



6»Kungl. S\'. Vet. Aljad. Handlgr., vol. 47, 1911, p. 60. 



"•Nov. Zool., vol. 28, 1922, p. 45. 



"Ibis, 1915, p. 252. 



'^Vdg. Afr., vol. 1, p. 657. 



