148 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The females vary somewhat in the color of the pale margins of the 

 feathers of the back, the extremes being dull amber-brown, tawny- 

 olive, and grayish earth brown ; the last being due to wear. 



The males have wing lengths of from 69 to 71 mm ; the females, 65 

 to 71 mm. 



This bird lives in the highlands of northern and central Ethiopia. 

 Blanford ^^ writes that it — 



is not a rare bird in Abyssinia, * * * i gj-gt met with it near Adigrat, 

 where it was far from scarce, and * * * again * * * on some of the 

 passes south of Antalo, and at Lalie Ashangi. It was never noticed below about 

 8000 feet of elevation, but at the same time I did not observe it in the higher 

 plateaux, so that it appears to belong to the temperate rather than to the 

 subalpine fauna. 



Erlanger** found a nest with four young birds between Harrar 

 and Adis Abeba in April. Neumann ^^ writes that birds in breeding 

 condition were taken in Shoa in September. Mearns collected a 

 mated pair on February 15 on the Arussi Plateau. It appears, there- 

 fore, that the breeding season must be either a prolonged one or that 

 there are two such seasons, one from February to April and the 

 other in September. 



Mearns noted this bird as fairly common along the Hawash River, 

 especially on the upper stretches, January 26 to February 13. 



SAXICOLA TORQUATA MAURA (Pallas) 



Motacilla maura Pallas, Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen 

 Reichs, vol. 2, p. 708, 1773: Ural Mountains, between the Tobol and 

 Irtysh Rivers. 



Specimens collected : 1 male. Iron Bridge, Hawash River, February 14, 1912. 



The Ural stone-chat winters as far south as southern Ethiopia, 

 Gallaland, northern Somaliland, and southern Arabia. In the Sudan 

 it occurs as far south as Sobat on the White Nile. 



Neumann ^^ has straightened out the confusion that existed in the 

 literature with regard to the nomenclature of this form. He leaves 

 the question of a resident Abyssinian race hemprichii open, but 

 Meinertzhagen ^'^ has decided the latter is a sjmonym of maura and is 

 not a breeding bird in northeastern Africa. 



According to Grote ^^ the migration route appears to follow the 

 Red Sea and not the Nile Valley. The form has been taken in 

 Egypt on only a few occasions. 



The present specimen is in freshly molted plumage. 



*s Observations on the geology and zoology of Abyssinia, etc., pp. 365-366, 1870. 



sojourn, fiir Orn. 1905, p. 749. 



s'Journ. fiir Orn., 1906, p. 297. 



so Ibid., pp. 295-297. 



«Ibis, 1922, p. 22. 



««Mitteil. Zool. Mus. Berlin, vol. 16, pt. 1, p. 45, 1930. 



