486 



BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



While specimens of hemqyrichii usually have a considerable amount 

 of red on the upper tail coverts, occasionally one is found without 

 any. One of the females from the Lekiundu River is without the 

 red color, and has a rather peculiar pattern on these feathers. In- 

 stead of being plain or barred they are barred on the basal half, 

 and yellowish with a broad dusky shaft streak on the distal half. 

 Six of the birds collected are in molt (April-July). The caudal 

 precedes the alar molt; the former is centrifugal, the latter appears 

 to have a single center of origin — the carpal joint. 



This race of the cardinal woodpecker appears to have a remark- 

 ably wide altitudinal range. Von Heuglin observed it on the Eri- 

 trean coastlands and in Sennar and Kordofan, while in central Ethi- 

 opia and Gallaland he obtained specimens up to 11,000 feet (3,300 

 meters). Blanford,^^ however, intimates that this extensive range 

 is partly accounted for by migration, and writes that : 



* * * this bird keeps to a lower level than the last species {Campcihera 

 nuMca), but is certainly rare, and in the hot season, I thinlc, entirely wanting 

 in the plains near the sea, where however, Brehm records having met with it 

 in the month of April. At the time of the spring rains many birds appear to 

 migrate from the mountains to the plains of Samhar, which are not found 

 there at other times * * * 



Blanford saw this bird near Undel Wells, in the pass below Senafe, 

 and in the Lebka Valley at 3,000-4,000 feet (900-1,200 meters) . Er- 

 langer ^^ writes that in Ethiopia this bird inhabits the lower arid 

 thornbush country, but also occurs in the denser vegetation in the 

 highlands. While he makes no mention of a migratory movement, 

 the ecological difFerence between the arid low country and the more 

 humid, more forested highlands suggests that the species probably 

 breeds in one and not the other, as very few birds are equally at home 



i^Geol. and Zool., Abyss., 1870, p. 306. 

 "Journ. f. Ornith., 1905, p. 480. 



