BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 445 



since the unique type was taken, I can not agree with Sclater that it 

 is probably an aberrant stigmatothorax. Aside from the fact that 

 the anterior parts of the white cheek stripe and of the supercilium 

 are yellow, the dark parts of the head and throat are black, not 

 brown. If the bird lacked the yellow, I should be inclined to con- 

 sider favihuccale either an itinerant example of typical melano- 

 cephalum or an extremely dark, melanistic stigmatothorax. If it were 

 brown instead of black and had the yellow, I should look upon it 

 (w^ith suspicion) as a xanthochroistic stigmatothorax^ but I know 

 of no instance in any group of birds of melanism and xanthochroism 

 being present in the same individual. The possibility of its being a 

 hybrid between stigmatothorax and T. diadematuni massaicwn seems 

 rather remote. It looks like a distinct species. 



Van Someren -^ writes that young stigmatothorax have the same 

 coloration as adults but are somewhat duller in general appearance. 

 The material available for study is not sufficient to prove or to dis- 

 prove this, but the following suggestion is brought out by a critical 

 comparison of skins. The adult birds undergo a complete \)o?i- 

 nuptial molt at the time when the young are a week or so out of the 

 nest ; the molt sometimes begins even before the young leave the nest 

 but usually later. Thus, by the time the juvenile birds are full 

 grown, their feathers are more worn and faded than the new plumage 

 of their parents. Young birds are usually quite abraded in plumage 

 in a short time after quitting the nest, and it follows that the differ- 

 ence that Van Someren attributes to age may well be due to wear. 

 The difference betw^een fresh and old plumage in adults is quite 

 noticeable, the latter being duller, browner, less fuscous, than the 

 former. 



Adult birds vary markedly in the presence or absence of yellowish 

 or tawny-buff tips to the feathers of the forehead and anterolateral 

 margins of the pileum. The variations appear to be uncorrelated 

 with sex,*age, wear, or season. One specimen, a male from Tertale 

 (U.S.N.M. 244314), has some of the forehead feathers tipped with 

 orange red instead of yellow. This same individual also has the 

 reddish belly streak much brighter and better developed than any of 

 the others examined. 



Two of the series collected are in molting condition. The follow- 

 ing facts are indicated (by these and other molting birds examined) : 

 1. The remigial molt has two centers of origin — the carpal joint 

 and the fifth primary from the outside. 2. The tail molt is cen- 

 tripetal and begins very slightly before the wing molt. 3. The body 

 molt appears to be irregular and is coincident in time with that of 

 the wings and tail. 



2«Nov. Zool.. vol. 29, 1922, p. 56. 



