408 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



In Damaraland and southern Angola another form, P. r. trothae^ 

 occurs. This form I have not seen. 



Erlanger ^^ found a nesting colony on the lower Ganale on April 

 26. On May 9 he found another nesting group in the Garre-Lewin 

 country. In north-central Kenya Colony (Lake Baringo region), the 

 breeding season was found to be in July, when Jackson found great 

 quantities of nests and enormous numbers of the birds in the thorn 

 trees. Farther south, in central Tanganyika Territory, Schuster ^^ 

 found birds nesting early in March. 



PLOCEUS OCULARIUS ABAYENSIS Neumann 



Ploceus ocularius abayensis Neumann, Jouin. fiir Orn., 1905, p. 339: Gigiro in 



the lake district of southern Abyssinia. 

 Specimens collected : 



1 adult male, Botola, Sidamo, Ethiopia, March 5, 1912. 



1 adult "female" (=male), near Gardula, Ethiopia, March 27, 1912^ 



1 adult male, Gato River near Gardula, Ethiopia, April 17, 1912. 



1 immature female, Escarpment, Kenya Colony, September 9, 1912. 



I follow Sclater -^ in recognizing abayensis, as I have seen but one 

 female of this form (the characters are based on that sex), but I doubt 

 its validity. Hartert ^^ finds dbayejisis untenable, and says : "Al- 

 though the type of P. ocularius abayensis is a somewhat dark in- 

 dividual, the examination of our series and that in the British Mu- 

 seum has convinced me that it is impossible to separate a South 

 Ethiopian form." Zedlitz -^ and van Someren ^^ also consider abay- 

 ensis a synonym of crocatus. Sclater states that abayensis occurs in 

 the "lake districts of southern Abyssinia," and crocatus in the "Upper 

 AVIiite Nile districts, south through Uganda and the western districts 

 of Kenya Colony to Kivu," etc. In other words, the birds of western 

 Kenya Colony are supposed to be different from those of southern 

 Ethiopia. On this basis the example from Escarpment would have 

 to be called crocatus^ but it is certainly not different from abayensis. 

 I have also seen birds exactly agreeing with abayensis from Lake 

 Naivasha. I have come to the conclusion that abayensis, if distinct, 

 occurs south in the highlands of western Kenya Colony and that 

 crocatus lives in the lower elevations (Kisumu, Soronko, North 

 Kavirondo) , similar in altudinal range to its main range in Uganda 

 and west to Cameroon. 



A female from Gaboon is greener, less yellowish, above and has 

 a shorter wing than any comparable examples of abayensis^ just 



>" Journ. fiir Orn., 1907, p. 7. 



2«Journ. fiir Orn., 1926, p. 723. 



^^ Systema avium .l^thiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 746, 1930. 



22 Nov. Zool., vol. 14, pp. 496-497, 1907. 



=" Journ. fiir Orn., 1916, p. 13. 



^ Nov. Zool., vol. 29, p. 139, 1922. 



