418 BULLETIN 153, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Mearns noted from 50 to 200 birds daily on his journey from the 

 Indunumara Mountains (July 14) to the Tana Kiver (August 14). 

 In southern Shoa he recorded from 100 to 1,000 birds a day, but 

 curiously enough did not note it at all during his two months' sojourn 

 on the Gato Kiver. South of Bodessa the numbers seen averaged 

 1,000 birds a day, but this fell off to 50 a day when Mearns came to 

 Hor in extreme northern Kenya Colony. 



The birds of the interior of Kenya Colony are slightly grayer, less 

 brownish, on the crown, than are coastal and subcoastal birds, but the 

 difference is slight and only an average one. 



QUELEA CARDINALIS PALLIDA Friedinann 



Figure 26 



Quelea cardinalis pallida Frieidmann, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 44, p. 119, 



1931: Indunumara Mountains, Kenya Colony. 

 Specimens collected : 1 adult male, 1 juyenal male, 6 adult females, Indunumara 



Mountains, Kenya Colony, July 15-17, 1912. 



One of the females (U.S.N.M. no. 247325) is the type; the others 

 are paratypes. The adult male is in nonbreeding dress; some of the 

 birds are in fresh, others in worn feathering. The juvenal male re- 

 sembles the adult females (or the off-season plumage of the male). 

 Inasmuch as this seems to be the only series of pallida, it may be well 

 to record the dimensions of the 7 adults: Male — wing, 57; tail, 33; 

 culmen, 11 ; tarsus, 17.5 mm. Females — wing, 56, 57.5, 58, 58, 59, 60 

 (average, 58.2) ; tail, 32, 33, 34, 35, 35, 36 (34.1) ; culmen, 11, 11, 11, 11, 

 11.5, 12 (11.2) ; tarsus, 16, 16.5, 17.5, 17.5, 18, 18 (17.2 mm). 



Before the present series was identified the species had been recorded 

 at only one locality in northern Kenya Colony, at Marsabit, where 

 van Someren ^^ obtained three males. 



The present form is similar to Q. c. cardinalis but very much paler 

 above, the dark centers of the feathers much narrower and the margins 

 very pale tawny-buff, not tawny-olive-brown as in cardinalis. 

 Dorsally the females (and off-season males) of the nominate form 

 appear dark fuscous with narrow lighter streaks, while those of 

 pallida present a buffy aspect with narrow fuscous streaks. The latter 

 race also has a somewhat smaller, weaker bill. 



Q. c. pallida is known definitely only from the Indunumara Moun- 

 tains, but probably the Marsabit birds are of this race as well. 



Gyldenstolpe ^® writes that southern Sudanese, Ugandan, and 

 Tanganyikan birds are alike in color, but that Tanganyikan examples 

 are considerably paler on the whole upperparts of the body. It may 

 well be that eastern birds show an approach to pallida, as so many 



's^.Tourn. East Africa and Uganda Nat. Hist. Soc, no. 35, p. 58 (134), 1930. 

 »«Kongl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. H.andl., 1924, pp. 43-44. 



