320 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Zedlitz ^^ found the breeding season in Eritrea and northern 

 Ethiopia to be in the northern spring. Antinori recorded the mating 

 season to be in March. 



PRIONOPS CRISTATA MELANOPTERA Sharpe 



Prionops melanoptera Sharpe, Bull. Brit. Oni. Club, vol. 11, p. 46, 1901: Fer 

 Libali, Somaliland. 



Specimens collected : 2 adult males, 2 adult females, 1 immature male, 1 imma- 

 ture female, Endoto Mountains, Kenya Colony, July 21-24, 1912. 



These specimens are referred to melanoptera more by a process of 

 elimination than by any characters. Still, the identification is prob- 

 ably correct, as the birds agree with the descriptions in literature of 

 this race, which I have not otherwise seen. As far as I have been 

 able to discover, melanoptera has not been recorded before from 

 Kenya Colony, and the present examples indicate that this bird is 

 another member of the Somali avifauna that extends westward across 

 southern Gallaland to the Rendile country and thence southward to 

 the Endoto Mountains. 



The adults vary in the color of the occiput and nape just as in 

 cristata. The two males have wings 108 and 113 mm in length, and 

 the females 112 and 115.5, respectively. 



The young male is in the postjuvenal molt and shows that the 

 back is brown in the first pennaceous plumage in this form as in the 

 nominate one. 



SIGMODUS RETZII GRACULINUS (Cabanis) 



Prionops gracuUnus Cabanis, Journ. fiir Orn., 1868, p. 412: Mombasa (cf. 

 Finsch and Hartlaub, Die Vogel Ost-Afrikas, p. 368, 1870.) 



Specimens collected: 



1 adult male. Tana River, 1200 feet, Kenya Colony, August 15, 1912. 

 1 adult male, 2 immature males, Tana River at mouth of Thika River, 

 Kenya Colony, August 26, 1912. 



Soft parts : Iris orange-red ; eye wattles and basal half of bill red, 

 terminal half of bill yellow, shading into the red base; feet red, 

 claws yellowish brown. The eye wattles are brownish and the feet 

 paler red in immature birds. 



Zedlitz ^^ has reviewed the races of the red-billed helmet-shrike 

 and recognizes six forms. I have not sufficient material available to 

 decide for myself, but as far as it goes the series upholds Zedlitz's 

 conclusions. According to him the typical race occurs in Southwest 

 Africa north to Benguella ; nigricans replaces it in northern Angola ; 

 tricolor in southern and central Tanganyika Territory; intermedius 

 in the districts immediately adjacent to Lake Victoria; graculinus 



^^ Journ. fiir Orn., 1910, pp. 795-796. 

 5« Journ. fur Orn., 1915, pp. 51-53. 



