422 BULLETIN 153, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



G6a 



Since this account was written, Delacour and Edmond-Blanc 

 have reviewed the races of this species and consider sylvatica a syno- 

 nym of hordeacea. In their map they credit crasfedoptera with in- 

 habiting all of Kenya Colony, but upon what gi'ounds I do not know. 

 Only coastal birds are mentioned in their text. 



EUPLECTES FRANCISCANA PUSILLA (Hartert) 



Pyromelana franciscana pusilla Hastert, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vol. 11, p. 71, 



1901: Lake Stefanie. 

 Specimens colleoteid: 



1 adult male, White Lake Abaya, east, Ethiopia, March 18, 1912. 



12 adult males, 1 adult female. Lake Abaya, southeast, Ethiopia, March 

 21-23, 1912. 



1 adult male. Black Lake Abaya, Ethiopia, March 24, 1912. 



52 adult males, 3 immature males, 6 adult females, Gato River near Gardula, 

 Ethiopia, April IS^May 11, 1912. 



1 adult male, Murle, Omo River, Ethiopia, April 28, 1912. 



Soft parts: Iris brown; bill all black; feet pale brown, claws 

 darker brown. 



The Abyssinian orange bishop differs from the nominate form by 

 the fact that the orange upper and under tail coverts do not reach to 

 the end of the rectrices in the former and extend to the end of the 

 tail, or even a little beyond it in the latter race. When Hartert first 

 described pusilla he based it on its supposedly smaller size ; but later ^'' 

 he stated that the size character was not reliable. Zedlitz "* claimed 

 that the length of the tail coverts varied individually and considered 

 pusilla as indistinguishable from typical franciscana. Of the present 

 66 adult males, 4 have the coverts reaching the tips of the rectrices, 

 while 62 have the coverts falling short of the end of the tail by from 

 2 to 5 nun. It follows that while occasional examples may have long 

 tail coverts, the vast majority have short ones, and the race is cer- 

 tainly valid on this basis. The males of the nominate race that I have 

 seen all have the coverts longer than the rectrices. 



The nominate form ranges from Senegal to the Nile Valley of 

 the Sudan and to northwestern Uganda; the present race occurs in 

 Shoa, the Hawash area, and Gallaland, and in Somaliland. The 

 species has been taken in western Kenya Colony (Lake Baringo, 

 Elgeyu, and Eldoma Ravine) by Lord Delamere and Sir Frederick 

 J. Jackson. I have seen no Kenyan examples and therefore can not 

 be sure of their subspecific affinities, but they are probably pusilla. 

 The bird must be rare in that country, as van Someren, Granvik, 

 Mearns, and other collectors did not meet with it there. In south- 



»"" L'Oiseau, new ser., vol. 3, p. 548, 1933. 

 ''Nov. Zool., vol. 26, p. 144, 1919. 

 " Journ. far Ora., 1916, p. 27. 



