380 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



1 male, 18 miles south of Malele, Kenya Colony, July 28, 1912. 



1 male, 25 miles north of Northern Guaso Nyiro River, Kenya Colony, July 

 30, 1912. 



2 males, 2 females. Northern Guaso Nyiro River, Kenya Colony, August 

 1-3, 1912. 



3 males, 4 females, Lekiundu River, Kenya Colony, August 4-8, 1912. 

 1 female, Tharaka district, Kenya Colony, AugiTSt 14, 1912. 



3 males, 1 female, Tana River, Kenya Colony, August 17-25, 1912. 



1 male, west Thika River, Kenya Colony, August 28, 1912. 



1 female, between Thika and Athi Rivers, Kenya Colony, August 29, 1912. 



Soft parts: Iris dark red; bill all black; feet light brown, claws 

 dark grayish brown. 



The birds from Kenya Colony show, on the average, a very slight 

 tendency to vary toward propinquatus, but they are not different 

 enough from Abyssinian birds to warrant calling them anything but 

 melanorhynchus. 



Van Someren *^ writes that specimens from Naivasha and Thika 

 are darker on the back and blacker on the crown than typical 

 specimens of melamorhynchus. The present series shows no constant 

 color variations correlated with geography. In fact, there is sur- 

 prisingly little color variation, other than that due to fading and 

 wear, in the series (75 specimens) examined in the present connection. 



Of the birds listed above, molting specimens are in the minority 

 but are scattered over December, May, and August. Fresh- 

 plumaged birds were taken in December, February, June, and Au- 

 gust; birds in worn feathering in December, April, May, June, July, 

 and August. 



The males have the following size variations: Wing, 93-104 (av- 

 erage, 98) ; tail, 57.5-67.5 (63.5) ; culmen, 15-18 (16.3) ; tarsus, 22-25 

 (23.8 mm). Females: Wing, 90-101.5 (95.6); tail, 56-64 (61.3); 

 culmen, 15-17 (16.1) ; tarsus,^ 22-24.5 (23.2 mm). 



Ethiopian males average 2 mm longer in the wing length than 

 Kenyan examples, but the overlapping is very extensive. Ethiopian 

 males have this dimension varying from 93.5 to 104.5 (average, 

 99.3) as against 92 to 102 (average, 97 mm) in Kenyan birds. 



This race of the sparrow-weaver occurs from Nguruman, Tangan- 

 yika Territory, and southern Kenya Colony north to Shoa and the 

 Ha wash Basin (but not to Somaliland) and to northern Uganda and 

 the Mongalla district of the Sudan. It is a common bird throughout 

 its range and is noisy and, therefore, forces itself upon one's atten- 

 tion. Mearns referred to it in his notebooks as the "squeaky 

 weaver." Zedlitz ■*** has raised a question as to whether the birds of 

 central and southern Kenya Colony are TrielanovliyncJius or erlangeriy 

 but all other recent writers seem agreed that they are the former. 



« Nov. Zool., vol. 29. p. 135, 1922. 

 <«Journ. fur. Orn., 1916, p. 11. 



