24 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



MIRAFRA AFRICANOIDES INTERCEDENS Reichenow 



Mirafra interccdens Reichenow, Ovn. Monatsb., vol. 3, p. 96, 1895: Loeru, 



Koudoa-Irangi distr., Tanganyika Territory, 

 Specimens collected: 



1 unsexed, Hawasli River, Ethiopia, February 7, 1912. 



2 adult males, 3 adult females, Bodessa, Ethiopia, May 21-30, 1912. 

 1 adult male, Tertale, Ethiopia, June 10, 1912. 



1 unsexed, Endoto Mountains, Kenya Colony, July 20, 1912. 



2 adult males, Northern Guaso Nyiro River, Kenya Colony, August 3, 1912. 

 1 adult male, Lekiuudu River, Kenya Colony, August 7, 1912. 



Soft parts : Iris brown ; bill brov^nish black, flesh-color at base on 

 sides and below ; graying on middle of mandible ; feet and claws flesh- 

 color. 



The present series, supplemented by a number of other specimens, 

 reveals such diversity in color that I feel that Kenyan examples of 

 "iLT. alopex^^ and M. a. intercedens may be one and the same thing. 

 Not only do there seem to be two phases, a rufous one and a grayish- 

 brown one, but freshly plumaged birds are noticeably more rufescent 

 than abraded ones. The majority of recent authors have attempted 

 to separate these phases and call the rufous ones alopex and the less 

 rufous, more grayish birds intercedens^ but their action is largely 

 arbitrary. The name alopex has five years' priority over inter- 

 ccdens and is the name to be used if the two are reaJly identical. The 

 reason I have retained the latter for the present is that in spite of 

 the numerous records of alopex in literature from various Kenyan 

 localities, Sclater^^ writes that it is apparently confined to British 

 Somaliland. I interpret this as meaning that he considers the 

 rufescent birds of Kenya Colony the same as intercedens and that 

 they are different from topotypical alopex. Not having seen any 

 material from British Somaliland, I can not decide the point, and use 

 Keichenow's name for the present birds. 



The tendency to produce rufous individuals is a fairly common 

 one among larks of the genus Mirafra. Thus, we find M. fischeri 

 frequently producing extremely reddish birds (called tomda by 

 some authors, but not really worth naming) ; M. cantillans niarginata 

 is likewise somewhat dichromatic ; and in M. africana the so-called 

 form harterti seems to be merely a rufous phase of athi. 



Van Someren ^^ writes that the reddish '■'■ alopex'^'' (which he con- 

 siders specifically distinct from intercedens) occurs below 3,000 feet, 

 while intercedens lives between 3,000 and 5,000 feet. He also notes 

 that in northeastern Uganda, the country around the south end of 

 Lake Rudolf, and the Suk Hills, a paler, "desert" form is found. 

 I may say that the birds from the Endoto Mountains, the Northern 



25 Systema avium ^thiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 315, 1930. 

 28 Nov. Zool., vol. 29, pp. 177-178, 1922. 



