BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 177 



The five races listed above may be told by the following key : 



a\ Entire top of head, including forehead, green viridiceps 



a^ Forehead, or entire top of head, grayish. 

 6\ Entire top of head grayish. 



c\ Pectoral band usually pale yellow golzi 



cl Pectoral baud, usually rich yellow . aequatorialis 



6'. Forehead grayish, crown greenish. 



c\ Light area on outer rectrices almost white malensis 



cl Light area on outer rectrices pale yellow flavocincta 



Neumann writes that malensis differs from ■flavocincta in the color 

 of the upperparts, lacking the brownish tinge of the latter race. 

 However, I am unable to see any brownish tinge in the color of the 

 upperparts of either form. I consider malensis a very doubtful form 

 but have seen only one specimen of it, and I hesitate to synonymize 

 it on such slender evidence. The specimen examined does substan- 

 tiate the character of the light outer rectrices. 



This bush w^arbler appears to take two years to acquire full adult 

 plumage and to begin to breed when one year old. Thus, Mearns 

 shot a "mated pair" on August 14, both of which birds are in im- 

 mature plumage. The black pectoral mark does not appear until the 

 adult plumage is attained. This late assumption of the black trans- 

 verse bar on the lower breast suggests that such species as Apalis 

 thoracica and its races, A. flavigularis, A. rmmnzoHi, A. pulchra, 

 all of which have well-developed black pectoral bands, may be rela- 

 tively recent species as compared with A. flavida, A. cinerea, and 

 others. 



The breeding season near Nairobi is in June, and possibly later 

 as well. Van Someren ^^ found a nest with eggs on June 20 in his 

 garden at Nairobi. 



APALIS FLAVIDA MALENSIS Neumann 



Apalis malensis Neumann, in Reichenow, Die Vogel Afrikas, vol. 3, p. 612, 



1905: Schambala River, Male district, southern Abyssinia. 

 Specimens coLLEC?rB2) : 1 male. Gate River near Gardula, Ethiopia, April 15, 1912. 



This specimen is in worn plumage and has had most of its tail 

 shot off, but fortunately the right outermost rectrix is present and 

 agrees with Neumann's diagnosis of malensis in being very pale 

 yellowish white. Gardula is not far from the type locality of 

 malensis, and there can be no question as to the racial identity of 

 this specimen. 



Erlanger ^° found a nest with three eggs at Dagaje, in Gurraland, 

 on April 4. He found the so-called newnanni breeding in May in 

 southern Somaliland. 



»Ibis, 1916, p. 459. 



sojourn, fiir Orn., 1905, p. 729. 



