BIRDS OP ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 403 



somalicus and that the Latter occasionally has white spots on the 

 primaries (usually, when present, only on a few of them). Van 

 Someren -® has recorded a male of cdbanisi with a white bar on the 

 fourth primary of the right wing, " * * * indicating close rela- 

 tionship to R. minor,^'' so it is not surprising to find this character 

 appearing to a rather greater extent in somalicus, the form geo- 

 graphically next to both extremes (jninor and cabanisi) . The speci- 

 men from Gato River is more or less intermediate as far as the white 

 wing bar is concerned. It has a white spot on the inner web only 

 of primaries 2-7 inclusive (counting from the outside) and the white 

 areas are less than half as broad as in northern, typical rtmior. 

 However, it is large, having a wing length of 94 millimeters. Zedlitz 

 gives the wing length of minor as around 95 millimeters, and of 

 somalicus (female) as 80-87 millimeters, so in size it agrees with 

 minor and it is to that form that it is here referred. 



As I have shown elsewhere ^® the group Sclater refers to as cabanisi 

 is really an aggregate of two races — a smaller, more northern form, 

 cabanisi, and a larger, southern one, extimus. 



The races of this species are as follows : 



1. R. 7n. minor. — Characterized by well-developed white wing 

 bands and small size (wing, male, 95-98 millimeters, female, 90-99 

 millimeters). This form occurs from the plateau country of French 

 and British Somaliland southwest through the Ha wash drainage 

 basin across Arussi-Gallaland to southern Shoa as far as the Gato 

 River. It does not appear to have been recorded from the Kaffa 

 and Omo districts, or from the drainage area of the Nile and its 

 eastern tributaries. 



2, R. m. somaliciis. — Intermediate in character between minor 

 and cabanisi, sometimes with, sometimes without, the white wing 

 bands; wing length, male, 92-98 millimeters, female, 80-87 milli- 

 meters.^" Known from southern Italian Somaliland (Sarigo in the 

 Garre-Livin district, and the country between Bardera and the coast) 

 and from adjacent parts of Jubaland south along the coast as far 

 as the mouth of the Tana River. During the nonbreeding season 

 (February to May) it appears to wander about in central and north- 

 central Kenya Colony. Thus Lonnberg ^^ records specimens from 

 the area between Chanler Falls and the Lekiundu and Luazomela 

 Rivers. His birds were taken in February, while Mearns collected 

 a series of six specimens there in August, and these are cabanisi. 

 Zedlitz ^° suggests that the birds of the northern half of Kenya Col- 



=«Nov. Zool., vol. 29. 1922, p. 83. 



=^l'roc. N. Ens. Zool. Club, vol. 11, 1929, p. 29. 



•oAccording to Zedlitz, Journ. f. Ornith., 1915, p. 35. 



^ Kungl. Sv. Vet. Akad. Handlgr., vol. 47, No. 5, 1911, p. 77. 



94312—30 27 



