274 BULLETIN 153, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the Mediterranean countries from Spain to the Caucasus and Asia 

 Minor (Turkey and Mesopotamia). Winter quarters — western Africa 

 from Senegal to the Gold Coast and Northern Nigeria east to the 

 western slopes of the divide range in Darfur. One record for the 

 Bahr el Ghazal.^' There is also a record from the Mabira Forest, 

 western Uganda,*® but I am inclined to doubt if it is correct, as no 

 mention is made of niloticus, the form that normally occurs there. 



2. L. s. hadius: Characters — like senator but with no white on the 

 primaries. Breeding range — Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia and 

 Capraia, and near Lazio (Italy), according to the authors of "A 

 Practical Handbook of British Birds" (vol. 1, p. 272). Wintei 

 quarters — western Africa; Gold Coast and Nigeria. One record for 

 Eritrea.*^ 



3. L. s. niloticus: Characters — easily told from the other two races 

 by virtue of the fact that it has the middle pair of rectrices white 

 basally. Breeding range — Palestine to southern Persia. Winter 

 quarters — northeastern Africa generally, but particularly the drain- 

 age basin of the Nile and its tributaries, south through Uganda, 

 where, however, it is less numerous than in the Sudan, to Mount 

 Elgon. One record for Kenya Colony — a pair collected in the Mara- 

 goli Hills by Meinertzhagen.*® It also occurs in the Somali low- 

 lands. 



The present race does not occur to any extent in the highlands 

 and is therefore scarce in parts of Ethiopia, the majority of records 

 being from the lower areas adjacent to Somaliland and Eritrea. I 

 know of no records in Shoa west or southwest of Gada Bourca on 

 the Ha wash River, where Lovat shot a specimen. Mearns noted the 

 woodchat shrike along the Hawash River from Sadi Malka to Gada 

 Bourca and found it abundant in cultivated fields, from January 

 26 to February 13. When he left the Hawash basin for the highlands 

 of Shoa and Arussiland, he left this bird behind him. Donaldson 

 Smith obtained specimens near Lake Rudolf,'*^ which are the only 

 ones I know of from directly south of the Ethiopian highlands. 



This bird molts in its winter quarters and is ordinarily finished 

 molting by the first few days in February, when some individuals 

 start northward on their return journeys. Others linger a little, 

 but by March the migration is well under way. Heuglin found it 

 to leave in April. Blanford,'^" strangely enough, met this bird but 

 once, and then in the higlilands at 8,000 feet. Sclater records this 



« Sclater and Mackworth-Praed, Ibis, 1918, p. 629. 



"Van Someren, Ibis, 1916, p. 396. 



" Angelini, Boll. Soc. Ital., vol. 3, pp. 161-162, 1916. 



*«Ibis, 1921, p. 668. 



« Cf. Sclater, in Shelley, The birds of Africa, vol. 5, p. 289, 1912. 



^ Observations on the geology and zoology of Abyssinia, p. 340, 1870. 



