166 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



BRADYPTERUS BRACHYPTERUS ABYSSINICUS (Blundell and Lovat) 



Lusciniola uhijiss'mica Blundeitx and Lovat, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vol. 10, p. 19, 



1899 : Lake Cherclier, near Harrar, Ethiopia. 

 Specimens collected : 1 male, Aletta, Sidamo, Ethiopia, March 2, 1912. 



As far as I have been able to discover, this specimen is the second 

 one known from Ethiopia, and it serves to connect the type from 

 Harrar in the eastern part of that country with the series from Lake 

 No, Sudan, recorded by Sclater and Mackworth-Praed.^* 



Sclater ^^ has listed five races of this sw^amp warbler. Unfor- 

 tunately, he, as well as other workers who have not had access to 

 the type of fraterculus Mearns, has considered that form a race of 

 hrachypterus, which it is not. Van Someren '"^ was more nearly on 

 the right path when he wrote that altmni appears to be very similar 

 to fraterculus. The trouble started because Mearns described frater- 

 culus as a race of hahaeculus on the assumption that Reichenow °'' 

 was correct in stating that hahaeculus and harratti were the same. 

 Sharpe, however, inclined to the view that hahaeculus was identical 

 with Calanwherpe gracilirostris { — Calamornis gracilirostris), which 

 view has been followed by the majority of students with the result 

 that subsequent workers felt that Mearns implied fraterculus w^as a 

 form with 12 broad rectrices like the other forms of hrachypterus. 

 However, it belongs to the section of the genus having 10 narrow tail 

 feathers. The type itself has one complete rectrix (a narrow one) 

 and portions of two others ; the rest were shot off ; but a female from 

 Mount Kenya, which agrees perfectly with the type and which was 

 identified as fraterculus by Mearns, has 10 narrow rectrices. It fol- 

 lows, then, that fraterculus is not a form of hrachypterus, but a dis- 

 tinct species, closely related to altumi. The birds with 12 broad rec- 

 trices, inhabiting the highlands of Kenya Colony, are centralis. 



I have not seen enough material to really decide on the merits of 

 the races of the present bird, but it seems that the forms are very 

 slightly differentiated. The birds of the Kenyan highlands are 

 somewhat intermediate between ahyssinicus and typical centralis. 



The forms of this swamp warbler may be summarized as follows : 



1. B. h. hrachypterus: South Africa from the western Cape Prov- 

 ince to Natal, and (assuming that Sclater is correct in considering 

 transvaalensls Roberts ^® as a synonym) to the Transvaal and Nyasa- 

 land. Sclater writes that it also ranges north to Benguella, but inas- 

 much as he recognizes Bannerman's form henguellensis as well, this 

 seems doubtful. I have, however, seen no Angolan material. 



»*Ibl8, 1918, p. 658. 



M Systema avium ^thioplcarum, pt. 2. pp. 508-509, 1930. 



MNov. Zool., vol. 29, p. 229, 1922. 



" Die Vogel Afrikas. vol. 3. p. 580, 1905. 



MAnn Transvaal Mua., vol. 6, p. 116, 1919 



