372 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



in that museum. I can find no constant difference of any impor- 

 tance between them and Abyssinian examples. Other workers have 

 found similar difficulties. Sclater and Praed ^^ overlooked Neumann's 

 notes and naturally found color characters to be of little value. 

 Lynes ** writes that his birds from Darfur agree with others from 

 Ethiopia and also with a good many from Senegal {minor). 

 Hartert *^ admits that size varies greatly without respect to geog- 

 raphy and Lynes, although using a trinomial for his birds, finds 

 that the dimensions of the eastern birds seem to have been magnified 

 by previous students, " * * * for in the British Museum series of 

 19 specimens from North and South Abyssinia anything exceeding 

 165 millimeters is an exceptional wing measurement." More re- 

 cently Bates ^'^ measured a series from Senegal, Gambia, the Gold 

 Coast, Northern Nigeria, Darfur, Sudan, and Ethiopia, and found 

 little ground for the subspecific separation of the western birds on 

 account of their hypothetically smaller size. Specimens from all 

 these countries showed both extremes of wing lefigths, 150 to 170 

 millimeters. " But a few Abyssinian ones are a little larger, with 

 wings 170 millimeters or over, and Neumann found West African 

 ones to be smaller than Abyssinian ones. It looks as if there must 

 be a larger race in Abyssinia — perhaps in a part only of Abyssinia." 

 He concludes that the birds of the Egyptian Sudan to Senegal must 

 be all called minor. Inasmuch as both Sclater and Lynes called birds 

 from as far west as Darfur ahyssinicus, and inasmuch as this differ- 

 ence of opinion is strengthened by the nongeographic variability of 

 the birds, I have no hesitation in consigning tninor to the synonymy 

 of ahyssinicus, a species, which though variable, has produced no 

 valid races. 



The wing measurements of the birds examined are as follows: 



Males: Ethiopia, 158, 165.5, 167; Sudan (Blue Nile), 150, 157.5; 

 Senegal, 152-163 millimeters. Female: Ethiopia 159, 159.5, 160; 

 Sudan (Blue Nile), 150; Senegal, 151-156 millimeters. 



This species connects the European garrnlus with the African 

 spatulatiis and caudatus group being, in fact, nothing but a gari'ulus 

 with elongated outer rectrices. 



The range as given by Sclater ^- should be extended to include 

 Eritrea and Bogosland. North of Ethiopia proper Blanford ^' found 

 this roller to be not uncommon locally on the highlands, '^ * * * 

 but by no means generally distributed." He saw it occasionally be- 

 tween Dolo and Antalo, more abundantly about Lake Ashangi (8,000 



«S.vst. Avium Ethiop.. 1924, p. 206. 



«Ibi.s 1919. p. 672. 



** Idom, 1925, p. 38.'5. 



"Nov. Zool., vol. 28, 1921, p. 104. 



*oibis, 1927, p. 25. 



*'Geol. and Zool. Abyss., 1870, p. 319. 



