104 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



more rounded wing, more squarely truncated, less graduated tail, and 

 a differently sliaped bill. I consider it as demonstrated that galinieri 

 is a Lioptilotmis^ although admittedly the most distinct of all the 

 species of that genus. Parophas'nia may be used in a subgeneric sense 

 to give expression to the distinctness of galinieri. L. rufocinctus 

 Rothschild ^* is said to be structurally near galinieri. 



As this species is rather scarce in collections, I give in table 17 

 the dimensions of the four examples obtained by the Frick expedition. 



Table 17. — Measurements of four specimens of Lioptilornis galinieri from 



Ethiopia 



According to Mearns's notes, the two birds collected on February 

 20 were a mated pair. He found these birds in the vines growing on 

 the juniper trees in the highland forests. Von Heuglin ^^ found this 

 species living in pairs in bushy thickets and on tall trees in the Simien 

 Mountains, Begemeder, Wogara, Wadla, in Gallaland, and in Shoa 

 in places of from 8,000 to 12,000 feet above the sea. To these locali- 

 ties Neumann adds the Omo drainage basin and the mountains of 

 the Kaffa district. Erlanger^'^ found it in the Djamdjam country. 

 Judging by the condition of the gonads of his specimens and by his 

 observations on the song season, Erlanger fixed the breeding season 

 of this bird as from the end of ^March to late in July. Toward the 

 end of July he found a pair with newly fledged young near Adis 

 Abeba. All writers agree in declaring this bird to be one of the 

 finest, if not the very finest, singer of all the birds of Africa, several 

 of them in their field notes calling it the African nightingale. Er- 

 langer found that each pair had a definite region (wholly comparable 

 to the more recent idea of breeding territory) and that it was pos- 

 sible to estimate the number of birds by the number of spots from 

 which the songs came. 



Oberholser ^^ has found that Liopfilus Cabanis ^^ is preoccupied by 

 Leioptila Blyth,^'' another genus of Timaliidae, and he has proposed 

 in its stead the generic name Lioptilornis, used in this report. 



M Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vol. 23, p. G, 1908 : Lake Kivu. 



" Ornithologie Nordost Afrika's, etc., vol. 1, pp. 395-39G, 1869. 



68 Journ. fiir Orn., 1905, pp. 750-751. 



67 Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 35, p. 136, 1921. 



58 Museum Heineanum, vol. 1, p. 88, 1850. 



*» Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, vol. 16, pt. 1, p. 449, 1847. 



