396 BULLETIN 15 3, UISriTED STATES NATIOISTAL MUSEUM 



Erlanger ^ found a nest with three young at Belauer (between Jel- 

 dessa and Harrar) on March 3. Mearns collected two partly grown 

 Juvenal birds at Gato River near Gardula on March 31, so it appears 

 that the breeding season in Somaliland and Ethiopia is in February 

 and March. 



The sequence of plumages and molts is as follows : 



1. Natal down. — Not known. It is quite likely that it is light slate 

 gray as one of the ju venal birds has a few such downy feathers at- 

 tached to the distal ends of some of the abdominal juvenal ones. 



2. Juvenal plumage. — Acquired by a complete post natal molt. 

 Forehead, crown, cheeks, lores, auriculars, nape, scapulars, inter- 

 scapulars, back, rump, upper tail coverts, dull black with a bluish 

 or deep greenish-blue wash, the wash most pronounced on the head ; 

 throat and chin bluish black, the feathers broadly margined with 

 buff or tawny buff; lower throat and breast black with a bluish or 

 violet wash : rest of underparts dull black ; remiges and rectrices as 

 in adults — ^bluish or greenish blue with a metallic sheen, the feathers 

 with white spots as in older birds. 



3. hmnature plumage. — Acquired by an incomplete post juvenal 

 molt, the juvenal wings and tail being retained. Similar to the adult 

 but the throat black with a dull deep puri)lish-blue sheen and the 

 crown without any greenish or coppery feathers. This plumage is 

 worn for about half a year and during the latter part of its duration 

 the juvenal remiges and rectrices are shed. Finally the body feathers 

 are replaced giving rise to the — 



4. Adult plumage. — This is too well known to need redescribing. 

 This plumage can be told from the preceding by the greenish gloss 

 on the feathers of the upper throat and the minute coppery and 

 greenish feathers spangled among the blue-black ones on the fore- 

 head and crown. 



One of the immature or subadult birds from Dire Daoua has 

 several white feathers on the throat, an aberration of interest in con- 

 nection with the related s])ecies P. hollel in which the throat and 

 crown are always white or whitish in the adults. As already noted, 

 P. purpureus also exhibits a tendency to produce white throat 

 feathers. 



The molting season for adults begins around the end of the breed- 

 ing season. Five of the adults taken near Gardula were molting 

 cither the remiges or the rectrices. On the other hand, immature 

 birds shed these feathers in November. The wing molt precedes 

 the tail molt and, in fact, the replacement of the remiges is almost 

 completed before the rectrices are shed. As in so many coraciiform 

 birds there are two centers from which the wing molt advances — 



-•.Joum. f. Ornith., 1903, p. 463. 



