BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 



463 



The Juvenal plumage is similar to that of the adult, but the brown 

 of the back and wings is paler, and the feathers of the back iack 

 the white spots present in older birds. The postjuvenal molt ap- 

 pears (from rather inadequate material) to be incomplete, the old 

 rectrices and remiges being retained. 



The molts of this barbet are puzzling, and observations on more 

 material, living as well as preserved, are necessary to clarify the 

 subject. The wing molt begins at the carpal joint and advances 

 proximally more rapidly than it does distally, so that the innermost 

 secondary is renewed when the four outermost primaries are still to 

 be shed and replaced. The caudal molt is so irregular in th*^ material 

 examined that I can not put the individual observation,^ together 

 in any logical sequence. Thus, one specimen has shed and is replac- 

 ing the middle and the next to the outermost pairs of rectrices simul- 

 taneously and all the rest of the tail feathers are old. Another 

 individual has all but the middle pair new, the next to the middle 

 pair only half grown, the middle rectrices old, suggesting a centrip- 

 etal tail molt. Opposed to this, another specimen has the middle 

 three pairs new^er than the outer ones, indicating a centrifugal molt. 



This barbet inhabits the rich vegetation along stream banks in 

 northern Somaliland, but in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, 

 Zedlitz found the typical race to be in no sense a true forest bird, 

 bnt rather one of the thornbush and even of the less denseh"" wooded 

 steppe country. In the Sudan and the Lake Chad country the 

 typical race is said to nest in holes in the ground. 



