BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 



137 



The two specimens from Cof ali are slightly darker, more fuscous- 

 black, less brownish, above than the other males, but the difference 

 is not great and may be accounted for by the fact that they are in 

 worn plumage. In fresh feathering the upper wing coverts and the 

 inner secondaries have pale tawny-buff tips, which wear off leaving 

 uniform fuscous feathers in abraded birds. 



A male from Adis Abeba is considerably darker below than any 

 of the others, and approaches the Sudanese race h-euglini in color. 

 It differs from the rest of the series in that the light loreal stripe is 

 pale buffy and not white. 



The measurements of the present nine specimens are given in 

 table 28. 



The female taken at February 22 in the Arussi Plateau was one 

 of a pair shot together. The male escaped into a hole in the ground 

 in the open plain where the birds were seen. This might appear to 

 indicate that the breeding season is early in the spring, but Erlanger *^ 

 writes that the nesting time is in the middle of June and early in 

 July. He collected a bird in breeding condition early in July. 



Table 28. — Measurements of nine specimens of Oenanthe bottae frenata from 



EtJiiopia 



CERCOMELA MELANURA LYPURA (Hemprich and Ehrenberg) 



Sylvia lypura Hemprich and Ehrenberg, Symbolae physicae, etc., folio ee, 



1828: Abyssinia, i. e., eastern Eritrea (Neumann and Zedlitz). 

 Specimens collected: 



1 male. Dire Daoua, Ethiopia, November 27, 1911. 



1 male, Dire Daoua, Ethiopia, December 20, 1911 (von Zulow). 



1 female, Sadi Malka, Ethiopia, February 2, 1912. 



In studying the forms of the genus Oercomela, I have been guided 

 chiefly by Lynes's excellent review,*^ but also by Neumann and Zed- 

 litz's notes.^° Sclater ^^ follows Lynes. 



"Journ. fiir Orn., 1905, p. 746. 



«Ibis, 1926, pp. 389-397. 



«» Journ, fiir Orn., 1913, pp. 362-370. 



^ Systema avium .^thiopicarum, pt. 2, pp. 456-459, 1930. 



