342 BULLETIN 15 3, UISTITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



GALEOPSAR SALVADORII Sharpe 



Galeopsar salvadorii Shakpe, Ibis, 1891, p. 241, pi. 4: Turquel, Suk country, 



northern Kenya Colony. 

 Specimens collected: 



3 males, Ourso, Ethiopia, September 7-October 29, 1911 (Ouellard coll.)- 



2 females, Dire Daoua, Ethiopia, December 16, 1933. 



1 male, southeast of Lake Rvidolf, Kenya Colony, July 10, 1912. 



3 males, 4 females, Er-re-re, Kenya Colony, July 25, 1912. 

 1 female, Malele, Kenya Colony, July 27, 1912. 



Soft parts: Iris light brown; bill, feet, and claws black. 



The bristle-crowned chestnut-wing occurs in northern Kenya Col- 

 ony (south to the Northern Guaso Nyiro River), north through Shoa, 

 to the Hawash Valley, Arussi-Gallaland, and to Gibeli in Somaliland. 

 The last mentioned locality is given by Sclater,^^ but it seems tliat 

 the bird must be scarce in Somaliland, as Zedlitz does not include it 

 in his fine work on the birds of southern Somaliland. I know of no 

 record from south of the Northern Guaso Nyiro River, and I do not 

 know how to take Lonnberg's statement ^^ that this species "might 

 be regarded as a representative of the Somaliland avifauna even if 

 its distribution extends to Victoria Nyanza in the southwest." 



This starling appears to be rather local, especially in the north- 

 eastern part of its range. Erlanger " saw it but once in Gallaland 

 and commented on its absence elsewhere in his travels. 



The birds collected at Ourso in September and December were 

 beginning to molt and are in very worn plumage. The other speci- 

 mens are in fresh or worn plumage without any correlation to the 

 dates of collection. 



The size variations are shown in table 67. 



Galeopsar bears the same relationship to Onyohognathu^ as Kne- 

 strometopon does to Sigmodus^ for example. There are numerous 

 other similar cases in other groups of birds where a genus differs 

 from its closest relatives by the presence of bristlelike frontal 

 feathers. The whole question of the modification of ordinary penna- 

 ceous feathers into specialized ones like these is most interesting 

 and should be studied as a separate problem. 



Lonnberg suggests, on the basis of his own observations and those 

 of Hilgert and Erlanger, that this species nests on steep rocks or 

 cliffs near water. 



Although previous observers found this bird noticeably local, 

 Mearns saw large numbers of them, as the following entries in his 

 field books indicate: Southeast of Lake Rudolf, July 10, 18 seen; 

 Nyero Mountains south of Lake Rudolf, July 13, 25 seen; Endoto 



^^ Systema avium iEthiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 667, 1930. 

 « Kongl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Hand!., 1911, p. 98. 

 " Journ. fur Orn., 1905, p. 710. 



