200 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Lynes writes that this form is abundant along the line of the 

 Uganda Railway from Sultan Hamid to Makindu. The breeding 

 seasons are as follows: Principal breeding season during the main 

 rains, April to July; secondary breeding season during the lesser 

 rains, November and December, "but not entirely confined to those 

 periods." 



CISTICOLA CHINIANA BODESSA Mearns 



Cisticola subruficapiUa todessa Meiarns, Smitlisoniau Misc. Coll., vol. 61, no. 11, 

 p. 2, 1913 : Bodessa, southern Ethiopia. 



Spexjimens collected : 



1 male, 1 female, 1 unsexed, Hawash River, Ethiopia, February 5-12, 1912. 

 1 male, northeast Lake Abaya, Ethiopia, March 17, 1912. 

 1 male, 1 female, Gidabo River, Ethiopia, March 17, 1912. 

 1 male, White Lake Abaya, Ethiopia, March 20, 1912. 

 1 male, Lake Abaya, southeast, Ethiopia, March 21, 1912. 

 1 male, 1 female, Black Lake Abaya, Ethiopia, March 23-24, 1912. 

 33 males, 8 females, Gato River near Gardula, Ethiopia, March 27-May 11, 

 1912. 



1 male, Bodessa-Tertale, Ethiopia, April 9, 1912. 



2 males, southeast Lake Stefanie, Ethiopia, April 30-May 11, 1912. 

 7 males, 2 females, Bodessa, Ethiopia, May 22-27, 1912. 



1 male, Sagon River, Ethiopia, June 3, 1912. 



Soft parts: Adult male — iris light reddish brown; bill brownish 

 black, plumbeous on the basal half of the mandible; feet brownish 

 flesh color ; claws dark brown ; inside of mouth black. In the adult 

 female the soft parts are similar, except that the inside of the mouth 

 is yellowish. 



Two of the Bodessa males are juvertals with yellowish throats and 

 underparts generally. 



The male from White Lake Abaj^a is the type of Cisticola suh- 

 mficapilla fHchi Mearns, which is really the winter plumage of 

 hodessa; one of the adult males from Bodessa is the type of bodessa. 



Lynes ^® gives the size characters of hodessa to be : Wing, males, 

 65-71; females, 65-59; tail, summer, 52-56, winter, 55-61, perennial, 

 53-59 (all males). The present series indicates that the lower limits 

 of variation are too high in Lynes's figures. The dimensions of the 

 adult birds collected by the Childs Frick expedition are shown in 

 table 40. 



The plumages of the present series uphold Lynes's conclusions 

 that both the seasonal and the perennial modes of dress occur to- 

 gether, at least in southwestern Ethiopia. In the Hawash Valley 

 the seasonal mode appears to be the usual one, while in southern 

 Shoa (Lake Abaya to the Kenyan border) the perennial mode seems 

 to be the commoner one. A few of the birds taken in April and May 



«Ibis, 1930, Suppl., p. 270. 



