BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 383 



30 birds; Malele, July 27, 200; 18-24 miles south of Malele, July 28- 

 29, 200; Northern Guaso Nyiro Kiver, July 31-August 3, 40 birds; 

 Lekiundu Kiver, August 4r-S, 100 seen ; Guaso Mara Kiver, August 9, 

 50 birds seen. 



PSEUDONIGRITA ARNAUDI KAPITENSIS Mearns 



Figure 22 



Pseudonigrita arnaudi kapitensis Mearns, Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 56, 



no. 14, p. 5, 1910 : Juja Farms, Kapiti Plains, Kenya Colony. 

 Specimens collected : 



3 males, 2 females, east of Itlianga Hills, near Tana River, Kenya Colony, 



August 26, 1912. 

 1 male, 1 female, Atlii River near Juja Farm, Kenya Colony, August 31, 



1912. 

 1 female, Athi Station, Uganda Railway, Kenya Colony, September 1, 1912. 



Sclater ^^ does not recognize kapitensis, but I find it is certainly 

 valid, differing from arnaudi in being larger. Van Someren ^- also 

 finds kapitensis recognizable, but he considers emini Reichenow to 

 be a synonym, in which case emini would have to be used for the 

 present form. This, however, is erroneous, as emini is a much paler 

 bird than kapitensis. Van Someren also notes that two specimens 

 from the Magadi district are indistinguishable from typical arnaudi 

 from Nimule. This would seem to be a corroboration of Sclater's 

 decision in lumping kapitensis with arnaudi, but it is better to look 

 upon these two specimens as unusually small kapitensis, as a good 

 series of this form indicates its racial validity. 



From the material examined in the present study, comprising 

 some 24 specimens, it seems to me that there are four races of 

 this weaver, instead of merely two, as Sclater writes. They are 

 as follows : 



1. P. a. arnaudi: The extreme southern Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 

 (Bahr el Ghazal and Mongalla) east through northern Uganda to 

 Turkanaland. 



2. P. a. kapitensis: Elgeyu east to the Kapiti Plains and Ithanga 

 Hills, south to the Magadi and Teita districts, Kenya Colony. 



3. P. a. dorsalis: The Ikoma, Mwanza, and Tabora districts of 

 Tanganyika Territory. 



4. P. a. emini: Northeastern Tanganyika Territory from Ugogo 

 south to Dodoma. 



The first two forms are brown-backed with no gray dorsal area 

 and may be told apart on a basis of size (wings, 60-63 mm in 

 arnaudi, 64^-70.5 mm in kapitensis) ; dorsalis has a grayish area on 

 the upper back and is less brownish above than either arnaudi or 



" Systema avium ^thiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 719, 1930. 

 "Nov. Zool., vol. 29, 1922, p. 146. 



