BIEDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 



431 



The two birds taken in October (Ourso) and February (Serre) 

 are in worn plumage, the others March (Hawash River [in M.C.Z.] 

 and Aletta) are in fresh plumage. The immature bird (May) is in 

 worn plumage and was beginning to molt the remiges, only the 

 innermost primary being replaced by a new, partly grown remex. 

 The Ourso bird is similarly commencing to molt, the innermost 

 secondaries being replaced and two-thirds grown. 



BUCORVUS ABYSSINICUS (Boddaert) 



BU'Ceros abussinicus Bodd.\eet, Table PI. Enlum., p. 48, 1783: Ethiopia (See 

 Lath. Syn. Bds., vol. 1, p. 347, 1781). 



Specitnens collected ; 



Male, Hawash River, Ethiopia, February 9, 1912. 



Male and female, Serre, Ethiopia, February 13, 1912. 



Soft parts : Iris dark brown ; bill black with an area on sides of 

 maxilla at base orange-vermilion, crossed by blackish bars; throat 

 pouch dark blue with large central area vinous red; feet and claws 

 black; bare skin around eye dark blue. This refers to the male 

 from the Hawash River. Of the Serre male, Mearns writes the bare 

 skin around the eye and the chin dark blue, rest of throat dark vinous 

 red. Of the female, he notes the bare neck and around eye dark 

 grayish blue without red. 



Bocage's western form guineensis ^° is not distinct from ahyssinicus- 

 I have compared the present three birds with one from Gambia and 

 find theril alike. The measurements are as follows : 



This species occurs from Gambia across the Sudan to Ethiopia, 

 Bogosland, and Eritrea, south to northern Cameroon in the west, and 

 to the Turkwell River (on the Uganda-Kenya border) and to the 

 northwest of Lake Baringo in the east. Von Heuglin writes that it 

 occurs throughout the whole of Ethiopia and in the adjacent high- 

 lands of Habab and Bogosland, and, westward, in Sennar, Kordofan, 



»»Proc. Zool. Soc. Lend., 1873, p. 698. 



