214 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



remiges at all seasons. Hartert " says it also has a stronger bill than 

 immufabilis, but this is refuted by Gyldenstolpe's material and by 

 the few birds of this race that I have seen. I must confess that I do 

 not see anything distinctive about the remiges of birds geographically 

 referable to graueri. 



The present examples of the typical race show a great deal of 

 variation in color, not accounted for by seasonal difference. The 

 female is paler above than any of the males; it has the top of the 

 head and the upper back uniform buify-brown, while the males are 

 darker, olive-brown with obscure fuscous streaks on the crown. This 

 is not a constant sexual difference, however, as Zedlitz ^* has shown. 



The dimensions of the present six specimens are given in table 42. 



This species, like some forms of the allied genus Cisticola^ presents 

 the curious phenomenon of having two seasonal plumages in the 

 extreme northern and southern parts of its range and not in the 

 intervening tropical area. The present race, and the South African 

 forms a-ffinis and pondoensis, have distinctly different breeding (sum- 

 mer) and nonbreeding (winter) plumages. In mistdcea the breed- 

 ing plumage is more grayish than the more rufescent nonbreeding 

 plumage, and the tail in the former plumage averages only 50 to 

 55 mm, while in winter birds it measures about 60 to 70 mm in length, 

 according to Sclater and Maclrworth-Praed." It would appear from 

 this that the present birds are all in winter plumage. They are con- 

 siderably abraded and probably would have molted into breeding 

 plumage in April or May. 



Table 42. — Measurements of six specimens of Prinia mistacea mistacea from 



Ethiopia 



Gyldenstolpe collected birds with shorter tails in gray summer 

 plumage in Mongalla Province of the Sudan in August. In Darfur, 

 Lynes ''^ found that the birds began "to assume the grey or dark 

 short-tailed breeding-dress in June, by moult of body-, head-, and 



"Nov. Zool., vol. 27, pp. 457-458, 1920. 

 ** Journ. fiir Orn.. 1911, p. 66. 

 " Ibis, 1918, p. 677. 

 '•Ibis, 1925, p. 101. 



