BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 357 



flanks pale yellow, while hlicki has these parts white with a median 

 yellowish area on the belly. I consider it nearer to albiventris than 

 to venustus^ and feel that these two "species" are really one specific 

 ^roup with white-bellied and yellow-bellied races. 



Van Someren ^^ records hlicki from Marsabit, Kauro, and Koroli 

 and states that birds from Turkwell, Kerio, and Lake Rudolf are 

 distinct from them and are probably intermediates between hlicki 

 and C. V. falkensteitil: He records alhiventtis from Serenli, Man- 

 daira, and Neboi, and writes that it "would be of great interest to 

 ascertain at what point this species meets with hlicki, and whether 

 there is any intergrading." 



The present series illustrates that there is such intergrading in the 

 country south of Malele north to the Indunumara Mountains. Thus, 

 two males from 18 and 24 miles south of Malele, respectively, have 

 only a faint, pale primrose-yellow midabdominal area, while the type 

 and topotype of the race (from the south shore of Lake Stefanie) 

 have this region primuline yellow, and the bird from El Ade has 

 some of the feathers tipped with light orange-yellow. Apparently 

 the Turkwell birds of van Someren's paper are like these typical 

 hlicki, which is, in the last estimate, a race bridging the gap be- 

 tween falkensteini and alhiventris. 



There are five races of this sunbird in northeastern and equatorial 

 east Africa, as follows : 



1. G. V. alhiventris: British and Italian Somaliland, west to the 

 Webbe in Gallaland, and south to Jubaland and to Lamu in Kenya 

 Colony. In the Malele district it intergrades with the next form. 



2. C. V. hlicki: Extreme southern Shoa, northeastern Uganda, and 

 the Eendile country of northern Kenya Colony, south to Malele 

 where it meets with alhiventris. 



3. C. V. fazoqlensis: Eritrea and Ethiopia south to approximately 

 the country just north of Lake Stefanie. 



4. G. V. falkensteini: The interior of the southern half or so of 

 Kenya Colony from Mount Elgon and Fort Hall, east to Mount 

 Kilimanjaro, then south through Tanganyika Territory (where it 

 reaches the coast) to northeastern Mozambique, south along the coast 

 to Lumbo. In southwestern Tanganyika Territory it begins to 

 merge into niussae of Nyasaland and Rhodesia. 



5. G. V. igneiventris: Uganda, Ruanda, Urundi, and the eastern 

 Belgian Congo south to the Kivu Volcanoes. In eastern Uganda it 

 intergrades with falkensteini, the meeting ground of the two being 

 just west of Entebbe.^^ 



«2Journ. East Africa and Uganda Nat. Hist. Soc, no. 35, p. 65 (141), 1930. 

 •^ See Ogilvie-Grant, Trans. Zool. Soc. London, vol. 19, p. 325, 1910. 



106220—37 24 



