BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 435 



The Djibouti specimen is quite different from the rest of the present 

 series, being very much paler and lighter, more tawny-buff, less brown- 

 ish or grayish brown, than the others from Ethiopia and Kenya 

 Colony. Additional material may possibly reveal a distinct coastal 

 race in French Somaliland. In fact, when describing meridionalis, 

 Mearns wrote ® that "on crossing the Ked Sea to French Somaliland 

 a very pale form of Aidemosyne was found at Djibouti which con- 

 trasts strikingly with specimens from Aden; rising thence to the 

 Hawash Valley, Abyssinia, a slightly darker form occurs which 

 remains quite constant through Abyssinia and British East Africa." 

 Apparently the dark-backed Arabian form orientalis occurs in British 

 Somaliland, and meridionalis is the form in the arid belt of northern 

 Kenya Colony, so it seems that if there be a recognizable race near 

 Djibouti, its range would be rather restricted. Zedlitz ^ records a 

 bird from the upper Ganale, in southern Italian Somaliland, as 

 orientalis, but he considers meridionalis and orientalis as one form. 



The Djibouti bird is as pale as inornata, and inasmuch as the latter 

 occurs in Eritrea, I thought the French Somaliland specimen might 

 be of that form. However, it has the upperparts definitely barred 

 as in ineridionalis. It may be an intergrade between inornata and 

 meridionalis^ but if further material should show the Djibouti birds 

 to be consistently pale and barred, it would be entirely justifiable to 

 name them. 



The race inornata occurs in Eritrea and extreme northeastern 

 Ethiopia, as well as in the Red Sea Province and lower Wliite Nile 

 in the Sudan. Zedlitz ^ recorded it from Cheren, Scetel, and Barentu, 

 while Blanford ® saw it in flocks about Ailat and Ain, and on the 

 Anseba. 



E, c. meridionalis ranges beyond the limits given by Sclater, who 

 places the southern terminus of its distribution in the Kilimanjaro 

 region. It is loiown from Kinyambwa, Dodoma, in central 

 Tanganyika Territory. 



The size variations of the present series are as follows: Males — 

 wing, 50-55 (avera.<:^e, 51.4) ; tail, 40^4 (41.8) ; culmen, 8.5-10 (9.5) ; 

 tarsus, 12.2-13 (12.5 mm). Females— wing, 48-52 (50); tail, 37-45 

 (40.6) ; culmen, 9.2-10 (9.7) ; tarsus, 12-13 (12.4 mm). Compared 

 with these figures, the Arabian form onentalis presents the follow- 

 ing average dimensions: Males — wing, 49.9; tail, 43.4; culmen, 9.9; 

 tarsus, 11.2 mm. Females — wing, 49.3; tail, 41; culmen, 9.8; tarsus, 

 12 mm. 



The birds are mostly in worn plumage. 



« Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Tol. 61, no. 14, p. 4, 1913. 



T Journ. fiir Orn., 1916, p. 29. 



"Journ. fiir Orn., 1911, p. 24. 



» ObserTatlons on the geology and zoology of Abyssinia, p. 408, 1876. 



