472 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



minor, exilis, and conirostris. After careful study of the various 

 attempts at revisions of these puzzling birds ^* I am forced to the 

 conclusion that their respective authors had no uniformity of 

 opinion, and when all are taken together the result is merely a chaos 

 of contradictions. Apparently no one has had sufficient material 

 with adequate data (age, sex, etc.) to get very far in this study. 

 It is unfortunate that none of the reviewers even hint as to what they 

 consider the characters of the species they recognize. 



The specimen from near Gardula is somewhat darker below than 

 the one from the Tana River, and it may be intermediate between 

 erlangeri and diadematus. If these birds are erlangeri they consti- 

 tute the first records for that race in Ethiopia and Kenya Colony. 

 In the Museum of Comparative Zoology there is a specimen of In- 

 dicator minor which I refer to teitensis, but it is rather small for that 

 form and is probably an intergrade between it and erlangeH. It has 

 a wing length of 82 millimeters (female). The present two indi- 

 viduals measure as follows : Gato River bird, wing 85.0, tail 53, cul- 

 men 10.5, and tarsus 14.5 millimeters; Tana River, wing 80.0, tail 

 51, culmen 10, and tarsus 14.0 millimeters. 



In the present state of knowledge, the less said about these birds 

 the better. 



In addition to the two specimens taken, Mearns noted a few "' small 

 Indicators " at Loco, Gidabo River, Black Lake Abaya, and near 

 Gardula, March 15 to May 17. 



PRODOTISCUS REGULUS PEASEI Ogilvie-Grant 



ProdotisGus peasei Ogil%ie-Grant, Bull. Brit. Orn. CI., vol. 11, p. 67, 1901: 

 Unji, Ethiopia. 



Sfeciinens collected: 



Male, Gato River near Gardula, Ethiopia, April 20, 1912. 



This specimen, which appears to be the third one known, agrees 

 with the description and with the plate in Erlanger's report.^^ In- 

 asmuch as the only comparative material available is a series of five 

 birds from Natal (typical regulus) I can not get very far in inter- 

 preting the case of feasel but I am very doubtful of its validity. It 

 looks too much like a mere aberrant regulus, and its scarcity sug- 

 gests the infrequcncy of the aberration rather than the extreme rarity 

 of the bird in the region of the Shoan lakes. The type came from 

 Unji near the north end of Lake Zwai, the present bird from 



'8 Oberholser, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 28, 1905, pp. 868-S74 ; Zedlitz, Journ. f. 

 Ornith., vol. G3, 1915, pp. 7-15; C. Grant, Ibis, 1915, pp. 431-436; Sclator, Syst. Avium 

 Ethiop., 1924, pp. 288-290; Van Someren. Nov. Zool., vol. 29, 1922, pp. 53-54. 



™ Journ. f. Ornith., 1905, pi. 14, figs. 2 and 2a. 



