BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 395 



Bowen ^* writes that in the Ikoma district, Tanganyika Territory, 

 the breeding season ends about the middle of June. 



SPOROPIPES FRONTALIS CINERASCENS Madarasz 

 FiGUBB 23 



Sporopipes cinerascens Madabasz, Ann. Mus. Hungar. (Budapest), vol. 13, p. 



395, 1915: Ruvana Steppes, Mwauza district, Tangauyilsa Territory. 

 Specimeins cotxected: 



1 male, Endoto Mountains, Kenya Colony, July 20, 1912. 



1 male, Tharaka district, Kenya Colony, August 13, 1912. 



I have gone over the literature and a small but geographically 

 representative series of specimens of this weaver from Ethiopia, 

 Sudan, Kenya Colony, and Tanganyika Territory, and I have come 

 to somewhat different conclusions from those reached by Sclater.^^ 

 In eastern Africa I recognize the following races : 



1. S. f. frontalis: The valley of the Nile in the Sudan, south to the 

 Upper Nile Province, west through Darfur across the Sudanese 

 savannah belt to Senegal. 



2. S. f. abyssinicus: Bogosland and northeastern Ethiopia; south- 

 ern limits uncertain, perhaps getting to southern Somaliland where 

 Revoil obtained a specimen which has never been identified sub- 

 specifically. 



3. S. f. cinerascens : The Mongalla Province of the Sudan, south 

 through Uganda and the interior of Kenya Colony to the Teita area, 

 and to the Ikoma, Mwanza, and Uliele districts of Tanganyika 

 Territory. 



4. S. f. emini: The drier areas from Ugogo to Dodoma, Tanganyika 

 Territory. This name is not mentioned by Sclater, who appears to 

 consider all Tanganyikan birds cinerascens. If this were so, the name 

 emini would have to be used for them as it has 18 years' priority over 

 cinerascens, which in turn has priority over loitensis van Someren. 



Zedlitz ^® has argued against the recognition of local forms in 

 eastern Africa, stating that almost no other species of the family 

 alters its appearance so greatly by abrasion and that therefore ahys- 

 sinicus (and emini) must be considered untenable. I have therefore 

 been careful to compare birds in similar degrees of plumage freshness 

 or abrasion, and I find that four forms listed above to hold true. Of 

 these abyssinictis is the palest on the back and the whitest below; 

 emini is similarly white below but has the occiput and nape paler 

 cinnamon-tawny and the back darker ; cinerascens has the breast and 

 flanks washed with grayish brown and has the occiput and nape as 



8< Proe. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 83, p. 73, 1931. 



^ Systema avium .^Ethiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 729, 1930. 



88 Journ. fiir Orn., 1911, p. 599. --ft;. 



