290 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



1,000 to 3,000 meters (3,300 to 10,000 feet). Erlanger states that it 

 breeds in holes in large trees, but does not give the season. 



Mearns recorded the yellow-headed parrot as follows: Aletta, 

 March T-13, 10 birds seen; Loco, March 13-15, 4 seen. All the 

 others seen were collected and are listed above. 



POICEPHALUS RUFIVENTRIS RUFIVENTRIS (Ruppell) 



Pionus rufiventris Ruppell, Syst. Uebers., 1845, p. 83, pi. 32: Shoa. 



Specimens collected: 



Five adult males, two adult females, one immature male. Dire 

 Daoua, Ethiopia, December 6-21, 1911. 



Two adult males, Moulu, Ethiopia, January IT, 1912. 



One adult male, Sadi Malka, Ethiopia, January 28, 1912. 



One adult male. Lake Abaya, southeast, Ethiopia, March 21, 1912. 



Five adult males, seven adult females, Gato River near Gardula, 

 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) Ethiopia, April 6 to May 14, 1912. 



Four adult males, one adult female, Sagon Eiver, Ethiopia, May 

 19 to June 5, 1912. 



One adult female, Er re re village, Kenya Colony, June 25, 1912. 



One immature male, Tharaka district, 2,000 feet (600 meters), 

 Kenya Colony, August 13, 1912. 



One adult female, Tana River, between camps 2 and 3, Kenya 

 Colony, August 16, 1912. 



Soft parts: Iris, orange red, same color as breast; cere and bill^, 

 plumbeous black; feet, plumbeous; claws, black; naked eye ring, 

 slaty black to livid plumbeous. 



The immature and four of the adult males from Dire Daoua were 

 collected by H. and F. von Ziilow; all the other specimens by 

 Mearns. 



Besides the above listed 32 specimens, I have examined 14 others, 

 or 46 in all. Unfortunately this series contains no examples from 

 Somaliland (subspecies palUdus) but it does enable me to discuss the 

 validity of simplex. Van Someren -" writes that birds from the 

 south of Ethiopia " * * * are separable from the northern or 

 typical birds, and the name simplex which Reichenow applied to a 

 female bird collected in Tanganyika Territory has rightly been 

 reestablished." The only unfortunate part of this statement is that 

 the southern birds are not separable from the Abyssinian ones. 

 The history of this question is* as follows. Reichenow ^^ described 

 a parrot from Tanganyika Territory under the name Poicephalus 



soNov. Zool., vol. 29. 1922, pp. 46-47. 

 ^Journ. f. Ornitb., 1887, p. 55. 



