392 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Male immature, Boulder Hill, Thika River, Kenya Colony, August 

 28, 1912. 



Male adult, female adult, between Thika and Athi Rivers, Kenya 

 Colony, August 29, 1912. 



Soft parts : Feet red, bill red ; claws brownish black. 



Phoerdculus grariti has always been considered a geographic form 

 of Phoerdculus dam/irensis, which would then contain two siibspecific 

 groups, as follows: 



1. P. d. daTiuirensis. — Known only from Damaraland. 



2. P. d. granti. — Kenya Colony from the Amala River to Ta- 

 kaungu on the coast, north to Lakes Rudolf and Stefanie and to 

 middle Omo Valley, in Ethiopia. It differs from damarensis in 

 having the crown, nape, mantle, and breast deep violet instead of 

 purplish bronze; the lower throat is brighter green in granti^ and 

 the Avhite spots in the wings and tail smaller than damarensis. How- 

 ever, there are no intermediates known between them, and while they 

 look, and are, closely related, the actual geographic void between 

 them is so enormous as to raise very serious doubts Avith regard to 

 their conspecificity. A species breaking up into two well-marked 

 forms separated from each other by not less than 2,000 miles with 

 an allied species (in this case purpureus) occupying the intervening 

 country is a very difficult thing to imagine. If no allied fbrm oc- 

 curred between them it would be less difficult to force one's self into 

 the conviction that may be, after all, the two were only subspecifically 

 distinct. One has only to think of the numbers of mountain birds 

 found on Cameroon Mountain, Ruweiizori, Kenia, and Kilimanjaro 

 to bring to mind cases of races geographically isolated by tremendous 

 distances, but in all these instances there is a good ecological reason 

 for their absence in the intervening country, which is much lower 

 and therefore climatically different. Although I have seen no mate- 

 rial of damarensh^ I feel that if nomenclature is to reflect biological 

 facts (or as near to actual facts as possible) it is better to use 

 binomials in a case like this. 



From P. purpureuH and its races, the present species may be dis- 

 tinguislied by its deep violet-blue head and back and breast, v/hich, 

 in the former are bright, metallic green. From P. somaliensis it 

 differs in having a red bill in llie adult stage. The imnuiturc plum- 

 ages of the three species of Phoenlculus are far from well known. 

 In fact, of the few^ statements that have been made about them, 

 more are based on guesses than on knowledge. Claude Grant - 

 writes that it, " * * * is with the young and immature specimens 

 that difficulty is experienced, but even these, when the eye has grasped 



= Ibis, 1915, p. 282. 



