338 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ONYCHOGNATHUS WALLERI WALLERI (Shelley) 



Figure 19 

 Amydrus walleri Sheixey, Ibis, 1880, p. 335, pi. 8: Usambara highlands. 

 Specimens collected: 4 males, 1 female, Escarpment, Kenya Colony, September 

 5-6, 1912. 



Sclater's arrangement of the races of the starling * seems to me to be 

 erroneous insofar as the ranges of loalleri, nyasae, and elgonensis are 

 concerned. He considers birds from all the highlands of Kenya 

 Colony (Mount Kenya, Mount Elgon, Nandi, Marsabit, etc.) as 

 elgonensis and restricts nyasae to Nyasaland and southwestern Tan- 

 ganyika Territory. The difference between the two is one of size, 

 nyasae being larger, elgonensis smaller. Van Someren^ sensed the 

 fact that the birds of Mount Kenya were larger than those from 

 Mount Elgon and Nandi, but he did not definitely commit himself as 

 to the relationship of the Mount Kenya birds to nyasae. He writes 

 in the following rather ambiguous way : "I have compared my four 

 birds with the type and find that they agree fairly well, but the type 

 is so poor a skin as to be almost useless for comparison. I doubt if 

 A. nyassae is a good race. The type is certainly a large bird." 



I have examined specimens of nyassae from southern Tanganyika 

 Territory (Uzungwe Mountains) and find them identical with birds 

 from Mount Kenya and from Escarpment, and I am led to conclude 

 that nyasae is not separable from walleri and that the distribution of 

 the races of this bird is as follows : 



1. O. w. loalleri: The higlilands of Nyasaland, Mount Rungwe, and 

 the Uzungwe Mountains in Tanganyika Territory north to the 

 Uluguru and Usambara ranges and Mount Kilimanjaro north to the 

 highlands of Kenya Colony, east of the Rift Valley (Mount Kenya 

 and Escarpment). 



2. O. 10. elgonensis : The highlands of Kenya Colony west of the 

 Rift Valley (Mount Elgon, Nandi), southwest to Ankole in Uganda 

 and the Kivu Volcanoes, but does not appear to be known from 

 Ruwenzori. 



I have seen no material from Marsabit and can not say whether the 

 birds of that mountain are elgonensis or walleri. 



3. O. w. preussi: Cameroon Mountain and Fernando Po. 



Van Someren gives the wing measurements of his male birds from 

 Mount Elgon and Nandi as 123-127 mm; the present four from 

 Escarpment have wings of 134.5-136.5 mm in length. The female 

 listed above has a wing measuring 131.5 mm and agrees very closely 

 with two from Mount Kenya. A male walleri from the Uzungwe 

 Mountains has a wing length of 134.5 mm. 



The present specimens are all in fresh plumage. 



* Systema avium .SSthiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 664, 1930. 

 « Nov. Zool., vol. 29, pp. 132-133, 1922. 



