344 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ISPIDINA PICTA PICTA (Boddaert) 



Todus pictus Boddaert, Table PI. Enlum., p. 49, 1783 : " Judia,'' i. e. St. Louis, 

 Senegal (ex Buffon, Oiseaux, vol. 7, p. 229, 1780). 



Specimens collected; 



Male, Sadi Malka, Ethiopia, December 21, 1911. 

 Male, Gardula, Ethiopia, March 27, 1912. 

 Male, near Gardula, Ethiopia, March 28, 1912. 

 Male adult, female immature, female adult, one unsexed, Gato 

 River near Gardula, Ethiopia, April 25 to May 13, 1912. 



Soft parts: Bill black, slightly tipped with white; feet salmon, 

 claws brown. 



The pygmy kingfisher is widely distributed in Africa from Senegal, 

 the Sudan, Ethiopia, Bogosland, and Somaliland, south to Angola, 

 the eastern part of the Cape Province, and to Natal and Pondoland. 

 Throughout this area it breaks up into two races, a southern form 

 with a blue auricular spot {natalensis), ranging north to Nyasaland 

 and southern Tanganyika Territory (one record from Dar es Salaam 

 and one Ruanda record) and the typical subspecies, occupying the 

 rest of the range. The distributional data given by Sclater''^ are 

 very incomplete, as no indication is given of the occurrence of /. 

 picta in Ethiopia, Bogosland, Eritrea, and Somaliland, although 

 not only did Riippell record it in the first-named country, Jesse in the 

 second, Blanford in the third, and Zedlitz in the last, but Sharpe in- 

 cluded all but the last of these records in his account of the species 

 in his monograph of this family of birds. The colored plate (No. 

 51) in that work, said to represent a West African skin has the 

 upper parts of the body too blue and not violet enough. I have 

 examined 25 specimens of the typical form and find that West 

 African birds (Cameroon material only seen) have the back and 

 wings deeper, more violaceous than birds from elsewhere, although 

 closely approached by specimens from the Belgian Congo. Two 

 from Kenya Colony and three from Uganda are the palest, least 

 violaceous, while those from Ethiopia are intermediate between the 

 latter and those from the Congo. Of the southern form, natalensis, 

 I have seen but one — from Natal. It is noteworthy that Gylden- 

 stolpe,®^ who obtained a specimen in the Kigezi district, Ruanda, 

 found it differed from typical natalensis material in having the color 

 of the back and especially the rump and upper tail coverts brighter, 

 and the spots at the ends of the wing coverts brighter, more greenish 

 silvery cobalt. It would appear (assuming this difference to be more 

 than individual in character) that the two races vary in opposite 



«T Syst. Avium Ethiop., 1924, p. 213. 



«^ Kungl. Sv. Vet. Akad. Handlgr., 1924. pp. 276-277. 



