BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 43 



The female is molting into adult plumage and reveals certain 

 features of the immature feathering. The top of the head is dark, 

 dull fuscous-brown with a few new, glossy, bluish-black feathers 

 appearing on the occiput. The old (immature) remiges and rectrices 

 are fuscous, the latter Avith white marks just as in adult birds; the 

 under tail coverts are white with small, subterminal brown spots, 

 while these feathers are pure white in the adults. 



Because of the rarity of this bird in collections, I give the measure- 

 ments of the present series : 



Males— wings, 120-124 (121.3) ; tail, 58-63 (60.6) ; culmen, 7.5-8.5 

 (8 mm.) . Female — wing, 114 ; tail, 51 ; culmen, 7 mm. 



HIRUNDO AETHIOPICA Blanford 



Hirundo aethiopica Blanford, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 4, vol. 4, p. 329, 18G9 : 



Barakit, North Ethiopia. 

 Specimens collected : 1 female, Lekiundu River, Kenya Colony, August 7, 1912. 



The single specimen procured by the Frick expedition is an im- 

 mature bird molting into adult plumage. 



This swallow is one of the relatively few birds of the Upper 

 Guinean savannahs that occur east through the Sudan to Ethiopia 

 and Eritrea, and south through Kenya Colony to the northern half 

 of Tanganyika Territory, without invading even the northern and 

 eastern parts of Uganda. At least, I have been unable to find any 

 definite records for it in Uganda. 



According to Sharpe and Wyatt,^^ on information derived from 

 von Heuglin, Blanford, Jesse, and others, this swallow occurs up 

 to 10,000 feet above the sea in Ethiopia, and is less common on the 

 coastal plains of the Red Sea than in the high plateau of the in- 

 terior. In Bogosland it is migratory to some extent, although accu- 

 rate data are not available. Antinori states that in that region it 

 arrives in May and leaves in August, but it has been said to remain 

 until December. Its relative scarcity in Ethiopian collections is 

 diiiicult to account for on the basis of migration. Mearns was in 

 Ethiopia for a long enough period to have met with it, and so was 

 Neumann, to mention but one other collector who failed to find it. 



Zedlitz*^ procured a specimen at 8,000 feet at Asmara, and ap- 

 parently unaware of Heuglin's comments on the altitudinal range 

 of this species, expresses considerable surprise at finding it so high 

 up in the mountains. 



Von Heuglin writes that the breeding season is from July to 

 October. However, as the female obtained by Zedlitz at Asmara 



««A monograph of the Hinindinidae or family of swallows, p. 308, 1885. 

 6' Journ. fur Orn., 1910, p. 786. 



