470 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



eater, but the following observations are worthy of record: Two 

 examples from Dar es Salaam (Loveridge collection), now in the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, are paler on the head than any 

 Kenyan or Ethiopian specimens seen and are also peculiar in that 

 they have very poorly defined light superciliary stripes. There may 

 be an undescribed race in the north Tanganyikan coastlands, although 

 more material is needed to substantiate this. Zedlitz ^^ included Tan- 

 ganyika Territory in the range of this race on the basis of 20 ex- 

 amples from that country, although later ^^ he made no mention of 

 Tanganyika Territory in his distributional summary. It would ap- 

 pear that if his 20 birds were like the two Dar es Salaam specimens, 

 he would have noticed the coloration and commented on it, and that 

 therefore it may be inferred that his Tanganyikan examples were 

 similar to more northern ones. He mentions only a slight difference 

 in the width of the bill, a character that is not noticeable in my 

 material. 



Sclater ^^ recognizes six races, three of which occur in northeastern 

 Africa. In Eritrea and northern Ethiopia there is a large race, 

 xanthopygius^ with wings measuring more than 70 mm. in length ; in 

 Shoa and Gallaland south through the interior of Kenya Colony to 

 north-central Tanganyika Territory the present form, reichenowi, 

 occurs. It is characterized by smaller size (wings, 64-YO mm) and 

 less pure whitish underparts, more heavily streaked breast and sides, 

 and more olivaceous upperparts than xanthopygius. Finally, in 

 southern Somaliland and northeastern Kenya Colony, a still smaller, 

 whiter-bellied, grayer-backed race, Mlgerti (wings, 60-63 mm) flour- 

 ishes. In Uganda and western Kenya Colony a black-chinned sub- 

 species somereni is found, and still others occur in South Africa and 

 in West Africa. 



Van Someren^* writes that birds from southwest of Lake Rudolf 

 and from Suk may be an undescribed race, being paler, less brownish 

 above than Kikuyu birds, approaching Mlgerti but more brownish, 

 less grayish above. He also states that Kenyan birds are less streaked 

 below than Shoan birds and that "when a series of typical birds is 

 available, the East African birds will have to be separated under a 

 new name. I have compared seven birds from Ukamba and Kikuyu 

 with eight from southern Shoa and find no such difference as van 

 Someren claims. Tlie Kenyan birds average slightly darker above 

 than the Shoan ones, but the difference is small. 



The young bird taken on May 19 at Sagon River is in fresh plum- 

 age ; all the adults are abraded. 



21 Orn. Monatsb., 1912, p. 75. 



^'Journ. fiir Orn., 1916, p. 46. 



2» Systema avium .SEthiopicarum, pt. 2, pp. 821-822, 1930. 



2* Nov. Zool., vol. 29, pp. 169-170, 1922. 



