212 BULLETIN" 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The birds vary considerably in the length of the wing, the extremes 

 being 39.5 and 48.5 mm in the males and 42.5 and 46 mm in the 

 females. They are in rather worn plumage. 



The breeding season in northern Somaliland is in January. 

 Erlanger ®^ found a nest with four eggs at Dadab, British Somali- 

 land, on January 25. 



Besides the specimens collected, Mearns observed this warbler as 

 follows: Southeast of Lake Rudolf, July 11, 2 birds seen; 10 to 25 

 miles southeast of Lake Rudolf, July 12, 2 noted ; Nyero Mountains, 

 July 13, 24 birds; Indunumara Mountains, July 13-18, 250; Endoto 

 Mountains, July 18-24, 550; Er-re-re, July 25, 20 birds; Le-se-dun, 

 July 26, 20 seen ; 18 miles south of Malele, July 28, 30 ; river 24 miles 

 south of Malele, July 29, 25 seen; 25 miles north of Northern Guaso 

 Nyiro River, July 30, 50; Northern Guaso Nyiro River, July 31- 

 August 3, 60 ; Lekiundu River, August 4-8, 2 birds noted. 



PRINIA MISTACEA MISTACEA Riippell 



Prinia mistacea Ruppell, Neue Wirbelthiere, zu der Fauua Abyssinien 



gehorig, etc., Vogel, p. 110, 1840: Gondar, Ethiopia. 

 Specimens collected: 



1 female, Adis Abeba, Ethiopia, December 30, 1911. 



2 males, Arussi Plateau, Ethiopia, February 20-24, 1912. 



1 male, Cofali, Ethiopia, March 3, 1912. 



2 males, Ethiopia, March 6, 1912. 



The races of tliis long-tailed warbler have been reviewed several 

 times by many investigators, such as Sclater and Mackworth-Praed, 

 Gyldenstolpe, and Bates and van Someren, and all agree in recog- 

 nizing several forms in northeastern Africa. I have examined about 

 50 specimens from the ranges of typical mistacea, immufahilis, 

 fenella, and graueri and find that the subspecies are rather poorly 

 defined. Gyldenstolpe ^° has cast some doubts on the validity of 

 immutahilis van Someren. I find that immutahilis and tenella may 

 be told apart by size characters but that the alleged color differences 

 do not hold. The form that puzzles me the most (and which, for- 

 tunately, does not immediately concern us in this report) is graueri. 

 A female from Nyanza, on the west shore of Lake Tanganyika, is 

 geographically referable to this race, but I can not separate it other- 

 wise from i7nviutabilis. On the other hand, a male from Kabare, 

 on the Tanganyikan-Uganda border, fits the description of graueri 

 very well, as it should by virtue of its geographic origin, but it 

 hardly differs from another from the Thika River in Kenya Colony 

 {immutahilis). Still, in the absence of more adequate material from 

 the eastern Belgian Congo, I admit graueri as a valid form. 



«» Jonrn. fUr Orn., 1905, p. 726. 



T«Kongl. Svenska Vet.-Akad., Handl., 1924, pp. 151-152. 



