360 BULLETI]:^ 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



This may be taken to indicate that this region may probably be 

 the meeting ground of the two forms and be inhabited by interme- 

 diate birdsj which are naturally difficult, if not quite impossible, 

 to identify with either race. However, another explanation is also 

 possible, namely, that the long-winged maior may migrate to the 

 eastern Congo and there occur together with albicollls^ but not breed 

 there. After this idea came to me I found that I had been antici- 

 pated by Zedlitz,* who noted that, although Sassi ^ recorded the 

 series of 37 birds collected by Grauer as containing 26 which had 

 wings more than 98 millimeters in length (98 millimeters being the 

 supposed minimum for maior) ^ all the birds were collected from 

 September to February — in other words, in the northern winter 

 when the species was absent from Ethiopia. Zedlilz writes that the 

 migration of this bee eater is not absolutely in a north-south direc- 

 tion, but rather more in an east-west line. In reality it is a com- 

 bination of both as the bird occurs much farther south in winter 

 than in the breeding season. Lynes ^ notes that in Darfur the 

 typical race is a " common summer visitor or migrant from east 

 to west * * *," but in the very next sentence he writes that in 

 spring he observed small parties flying northward. 



It may not be out of place to put on record the fact that the range 

 of the tj^pical race is somewhat more extensive than Sclater's - ac- 

 count would indicate. He writes that the bird occurs in West Africa 

 from Senegal to Gaboon, east through Northern Nigeria and the 

 southern Sahara to the Uele and the Ituri districts of the Belgian 

 Congo. However, Henderson obtained it in Angola, as recorded by 

 Hartlaub,^ Bocage,^ and Reichenow.^ The statement of range should 

 accordingly be amended to read " Senegal to Gaboon and Angola, 



The present subspecies occurs from tlie Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 

 Ethiopia, Bogosland, Eritrea, and Somaliland south through Kenya 

 Colony and Uganda (west to the West Nile Province, M'here, how- 

 ever, the birds are somewhat intermediate in nature) to Tanganyika 

 Territory, in which country it is known to occur as far south as the 

 vicinity of Dar es Salaam. It also occurs in southwestern Arabia 

 (Yemen Province). In the southern part of its range (Tanganyika 

 Territor}') the bird is known only as a migrant, there being no indi- 

 cations of its breeding there. It is likewise only as a migrant in 

 southern Somaliland and its status in Kenya Colony is probably the 



= Syst. Avium Ethlop., 1924, p. 221. 



» Ann. K. K. Naturhist. Hofmus. Wien, vol. 26. 1912, p. 372. 



*Journ. f. Ornith., 1915, p. 32. 



» Ibis, 1925, p. 375-376. 



« Syst. Orn. W. Afr., 1857, p. 89. • 



» Ornith. d'Angola, 1877, p. 88. 



■VOg. Afr., vol. 2, p. 318. , 



