262 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



tive material to study. In northeastern Africa there are three possi- 

 bilities : L. e. leucopygos^ L. e. fdllldirostns^ and L. e. aucJieri^ while 

 it is just within the limits of possibility, but hardly probable, that the 

 southwestern Arabian race L. e. huryi might get over to eastern 

 Ethiopia. Aside from the present two birds, I have seen no speci- 

 mens of any of these four. Going by the descriptions and data given 

 by Hartert,^® we may eliminate leucopygos because of its small size 

 (wings 99-102 mm, while the present birds measure 112.5 and 114.5 

 mm, respectively), and likewise huryi may be ruled out on the basis 

 of size. This leaves avicheri and paUidirostHs to be considered. 

 The former is said to have a grayish wash on the breast, which, in 

 the latter, is white, with or without a rosy tinge. The present speci- 

 mens have a very faint pinkish buff wash on the breast, but no gray, 

 and consequently I consider them best identified as paUidirosfris. 

 Both have pale bills, but this is not a subspecific character, merely a 

 sub^dult one. 



The outer two pairs of rectrices are notoriously variable in all the 

 forms of Lanims excuhitor^ but, on the whole, they tend to be more 

 uniformly white, less marked with black, in pdllidirostris than in 

 some of the others. In the female collected by the Frick expedition 

 the outermost are wholly white, the second pair white with a small 

 black oval on the inner web near the base; the male has the outer- 

 most pair similarly pure white, but has lost the next pair. 



Sclater and Mackworth-Praed " report that L. e. elegans breeds in 

 the Red Sea Province of the Anglo -Egyptian Sudan. This suggests 

 that elegans might occasionally wander south into eastern Ethiopia, 

 but so far it has not been found to do so. It may be told from 

 pcdlidirostrh by its smaller size (wings, 104r-107 mm). 



L. e. pallidirostris breeds in Transcaspia and winters in the Upper 

 Nile Valley, Eritrea, and southeastern Ethiopia, but it is rare (or at 

 least has been rarely recorded) in the two last-named countries. 

 Zedlitz ^* obtained a specimen at Asmara, Eritrea, in March, while 

 Sclater ^^ notes that in the British Museum there is a young bird from 

 Buggali, Arussiland, collected by Degen on March 3, and that the 

 Tring Museum has another young bird from Gallaland. 



According to Brehm,^* this bird arrives in Sennar in October and 

 leaves in spring. It may be that Zedlitz's Eritrean bird (taken on 

 March 8) is a migrant from Sennar on its way to its breeding 

 jrrounds. 



" Die Vogel der paiaarktischen Fauna, vol. 1, pp. 428-433, 1907. 



" Ibis, 1918, p. 628. 



"Journ. filr Orn., 1910, p. 805. 



w/n Shelley, The birds of Africa, etc., vol. 5, p. 271. 1912. 



» Journ. fiir Orn., 1854. c. 146. 



