376 BULLETIN" 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the lack of intergradation in the overlapping area, precludes the 

 possibility of treating the two as races of one species. 



In its general habits this bird appears to be similar to the typical 

 race. Lonnberg ^' writes that he met this bird as far south as the 

 Acacia steppes of the Lekiundu River, and that it was one of the 

 l)irds typical of that type of country. 



CORACIAS CAUDATUS CAUDATUS Linnaeus 



Coracias caudntus Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 12, vol. 1, p. 160, 1766 : Angola. 



Specimens collected: 



Male and female, Tharaka district, 2,000 feet (600 meters), Kenya 

 Colony, August 13-14. 



Male, Thika River, 20 miles above mouth. Kenya Colony, August 

 27, 1912. 



Female, Thika River, Bowlder Hill, Kenya Colony, August 28, 

 1912. 



Neumann's East African race Coracias caudatiis suahelicus ^*' is 

 not valid. Its characters were supposed to be darker rump, upper 

 tail coverts and lesser upper wing coverts than in typical Angolan 

 and South African birds. However, as shown l)y Grant "'•^ and by 

 a series examined by me, none of these characters hold true. Of the 

 present four specimens only one, the male from Tharaka district, has 

 a dark violaceous rump, the other three having this part ultramarine 

 blue. This variation occurs in a series of 11 other birds from East 

 Africa and in 3 from South Africa as well. 



As already mentioned under G. ahyssinicus, Erlanger's suggestion 

 that that bird may be a race of caudatus is not to be followed as 

 (ihyssirdcv^ occurs in the same areas as caudatus (or, at least, the 

 northern form of the latter, lorti). 



Sclater *"* and most other students of African birds consider this 

 species as composed of but two races — the typical one inhabiting 

 South Africa (except the Cape Province) north to Angola, Rhodesia, 

 the Belgian Congo (south and east of the forest area), Mozambique, 

 Nyasaland, Tanganyika Territory, southern Uganda, and Kenya 

 Colony (north to Mount Elgon. Eldoret, Kitale, Mau. Nairobi, Meru. 

 Fort Hall, Embu, and Lamu) ; and the northern iovm Jorti of 

 Somaliland. west to the Abyssinian lakes district, south through 

 Jubaland to central Kenya Colony (northeast of Mount Kenia) 

 and along the coastal plain to southern Kenya (Mombasa, Simba, 

 and Tsavo). The latter form differs from the typical subspecies in 



"'Kungl. Sv. Vet. Akad. Haiidlgr., 1911, vol. 47, no. 5, p. 69. 



^ Described .Toiirii. f. Ortiith., 1907, p. 593 : Usagara, Tauganyilia Territory. 



»» Ibis, 1915, p. 262. 



*> Syst. Avium Ethiop., 1924, p. 207. 



