88 



BULLETIN 153, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



PARUS LEUCONOTUS Guerin 



Parus leuconotus Guerin, Rev. Mag. Zool., 1843, p. 162: Abyssinia. 

 Specimens coixected: 



1 male, Adis Abeba, Etliiopia, January 8, 1912. 



8 males, Arussi Plateau, 9,000 feet, Ethiopia, February 20-29, 1912, 



The white-backed black titmouse occurs in the highlands of 

 Ethiopia from Djimma, Djamdjam, Shoa, Arussi-Gallaland, and 

 Harrar north through Tigre and Simien to Bogosland in southern 

 Eritrea. Throughout this area it lives chiefly in the juniper 

 and bamboo forests. Neumann®^ found it at altitudes of from 

 9,200 to 10,200 feet. Von Heuglin^^ writes that only once did he 

 find this bird below 6,000 feet — at Mensa on the northern border 

 of Ethiopia. He found iti not infrequently in Semien, Wogara, 

 Begemeder, the highlands of Gallaland, and Shoa, usually in pairs. 

 He writes that its habits recall those of the European species Parus 

 major. Blanford ^ found it to be not very connnon at Senaf e and 

 Adigrat. This observation is borne out by the fact that Jesse ob- 

 tained but, three specimens in Bogosland, and Zedlitz did not meet 

 with it at all. 



One of the males from the Arussi Plateau is probably immature. 

 It has the light patch on the back heavily washed with brownish 

 buff and is somewhat smaller than the other specimens. Keichenow ' 

 writes that these are the characters by which the young differ from 

 the adult birds. 



Taking only the eight adults into consideration, I give their size 

 variations in table 15. 



Tabij: 15.— Measurements of eight male specimens of Parus leuconotus from 



Ethiopia 



•5 Journ. fur Orn., 190G, p. 2G1. 



»» Oruithologie Nordost-Af rika's, vol. 1, p. 408, 1869. 



1 Observations on the geology and zoology of Abyssinia, etc., p. 35U, 1870. 



=* Die Vogel Afrikas, vol. 3, p. 513, 1905. 



