BIRDS OF ETfllOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 393 



This species ranges farther south than Sclater '^ indicates. He 

 gives Nguruman, Tanganyika Territory, as the southern limit, but 

 the bird is Imown from as far south as Dodoma in the central part of 

 that country. 



In the Ikoma district of Tanganyika Territory, the nesting season 

 is in July, as Bowen'^^ found a nest with one egg and one nesting 

 there on July 9. In Darfur, Lynes ''* found a number of nests with 

 eggs and young in October. 



GYMNORIS PYRGITA PYRGITA (Heuglin) 



Xanthodina pyrgita Heugun, Journ. fur Orn., 1862, p. 30: Bogos Mountains; 



Keren." 

 Specimens cx>llbcted : 



2 males, 1 female, Dire Daoua, Ethiopia, December 17-21, 1911. 



1 male, 1 female, Sadi Malka, Ethiopia, January 3, 1912. 



1 male, Hawash River, Ethiopia, February 6, 1912. 



The rock sparrow of northeastern Africa has been subdivided into 

 five races, all of which appear to be valid. In the actual areas 

 traversed by the Frick expedition only two occur — the typical 

 form and massaica. In southern Somaliland a pale, small race 

 (reichenoioi) flourishes; a similarly pale but larger form (pallida) 

 replaces it in the Sudan, while a large dark-backed form {kaka- 

 Tnariae) is found in the Karamoja country of northeastern Uganda. 



The two races of immediate concern in this report may be easily 

 identified by their dorsal coloration — pyrgita being lighter and 

 grayer, massaica darker and brov/ner. The supposed size differences, 

 especially of the bill, do not hold. The ranges of the two are as 

 follows : 



1. G. p. pyrgita: Eritrea to British Somaliland, south through 

 most of Ethiopia to southern Gallaland and to central Shoa (about 

 the region of Lake Zwai). In southeastern Gallaland it probably 

 intergrades with reichenowi; where and if it merges with massaica 

 I do not know, but birds of extreme southern Shoa (Gardula, 

 Bodessa, etc.) are dark, brown-backed birds, agreeing exactly with 

 typical massaica. 



2. G. p. 7riassaica: Southern Shoa, south through the interior of 

 Kenya Colony (reaching the coast in the southern part of that 

 country) to the northern part of Tanganyika Territory. The most 

 southern localities known to me are the Pare Mountains, Pangani 

 River, and Arusha, in northeastern Tanganyika Territory, and 

 Serronea River, loma district, in the western portion of the country. 



" Systema avium ^thioplcarum. pt. 2, p. 726. 1930. 



" Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 83, pp. 72-73, 1931. 



"Ibis, 1924, p. 686. 



™ See Zedlitz, Journ. fiir Orn., 1916, p. 42. 



