284 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



from South Africa to northern Angola, Rhodesia, and through East 

 Africa to the Tana River and the vicinity of Mount Kenya. In this 

 vast territory it varies less than some other bush-shrikes, such as 

 Laniarius ferrugineus. Four races have been described. Of these 

 only two appear to be constant enough in their characters to be worth 

 maintaining. They are, first, the typical race inhabiting South 

 Africa north to the Limpopo River; characterized by having the 

 rump patch in the females somewhat tinged with buffy (of this form, 

 Neumann's Angolan occidentalis '"^ is a synonym) ; and the tropical 

 East African race hamatus, which occupies the rest of the range of 

 the species, and in which the female has the rump feathers pure gray, 

 with no buffy wash. Of this form suaheUcus Neumann " is a syn- 

 onym. This race is said to comprise two groups, differing in size, 

 in East Africa. Thus, van Someren "'^ writes that birds from the 

 interior of Kenya Colony have wings from 84 to 87 mm in length, 

 while coastal specimens measure 75 to 82 mm. If this difference were 

 constant, Neumann's name suaheUcus would be available for the 

 smaller coastal group. However, an examination of 30 skins of 

 hamatus from both the coast and the far interior fails to show so 

 definite a size difference. The wing length of coastal birds is not 

 always less than that of inland ones. It is true that the minimal 

 measurements of the two groups uphold van Someren's contention, 

 but their respective maximal figures are practically the same. Thus, 

 coastal males have wings of from 76 to 84 mm, while inland males 

 measure 77 to 86 mm ; coastal females measure 73 to 80 mm, as against 

 77-84 mm in the inland females. Thus, even if Ave ignore the males 

 (and this may be done since the races of most species of Dryoscopus 

 differ only in the females), the overlapping is too extensive to allow 

 for a division of hamatus into races. Van Someren also writes that 

 the coastal females have the underparts whitish ; the inland ones have 

 a buffy tinge on the breast. I find a buffy vrash on the breast pres- 

 ent in two out of seven inland females, and in no coastal ones. 

 Therefore, this character, too, seems to be individual and sporadic, 

 not constant and geographical in nature. Furthermore, the buffy 

 color is an immature character, not found in fully adult birds. 



It seems as if the coastal birds are almost a blending of hamatus and 

 D. affinis. In fact, since this paper was first written, van Someren ^® 

 has made a similar observation and presented his data in detail. 



Sclater^** considers erwini a race of D. cuhla^ but I believe that 

 Sassi was correct in placing it as a subspecies of D. gambensis. 



'"Journ. fiir Orn., 1899, p. 413. 



" Ibid., p. 414. 



"Nov. Zool., vol. 20, p. 120, 1922. 



™Nov. Zool., vol. 37, p. 309, 1932. 



«» Systema avium ^thiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 622, 1930. 



