BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 493 



I have not seen any material of either ereTniae or acholioruvi^ and 

 can not form an opinion of their validity. 



Aside from the 8 birds collected, 12 others were seen at Aletta and 

 Loco, March 7-15. 



JYNX TORQUILLA TORQUILLA Linnaeus 



Jynx torquilla Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, p. 112, 1758: Europe, re- 

 stricted type locality, Sweden (Hartert). 



Specimens collected: 



One male, Loco, Ethiopia, March 13, 1912. 



The European wryneck winters in India and in Africa south to 

 Portuguese Guinea, Cameroon, the Ubangi-Shari area, northern 

 Uganda, southern Ethiopia, and Somaliland. It has not been re- 

 corded from Kenya Colony, and when we remember that the last- 

 named country has been more extensively and intensively collected 

 over than the countries to the north, this lack of records is equivalent 

 to definite proof that the species does not winter that far south. In 

 Ethiopia it is fairly widely distributed all over the country from 

 east to west and from the north to the southern Shoan lake district. 

 According to Zedlitz ^^ it does not occur in the Eritrean and Danakil 

 coastal area east of the eastern Ethiopian escarpment. Sclater and 

 Praed ^^ report it as " widely distributed in winter but not 

 abundant * * *," in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, while in Darfur, 

 Lynes ^^ found it to be chiefly a migrant, but also, to a lesser extent. 

 a winter resident. 



According to the authors of the Practical Handbook of British 

 Birds ^^ this species has two complete annual molts, one during 

 August to September, the other during December to March. In other 

 words, one molt takes place in the breeding range, another in the 

 winter quarters. The present specimen is in good, fresh plumage 

 and had apparently only finished its molt shortly before it was col- 

 lected. 



The wryneck is said to arrive in western Europe (England, France, 

 etc.) by the 10th of March, and the height of the migration comes 

 about the first week in April. The date on which Mearns collectbd 

 the present specimen is therefore a rather late one, but it is quite 

 improbable that the birds wintering in northeastern Africa are the 

 ones that breed in western Europe. They may well be the ones that 

 nest in eastern Europe. 



■"•sjourn. f. Ornith., 1910, p. 752. 

 »«Ibis, 1919, p. 034. 

 s^Ibis, 1925, p. 347. 

 "8 Vol. 2, p. 47. 



