BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 439 



notice." He records this species as a "winter" breeder, like the 

 Pytilias ; he found a nest at Zomba on May 6. 



According to Sjostedt,-^ this bird lives in tlie acacia and bush veldt 

 and in the lower cultivated zone on Kilimanjaro, where it is not com- 

 mon, being seen only occasionally. 



The present specimen appears to constitute the northwesternmost 

 record for the species. Sclater-* writes that it inhabits only the 

 coastal districts of Kenya Colony. 



PYTILIA AFRA (Gmelin) 



FringiUa afra Gmelin, Sy.stema naturae, vol. 1, pt. 2. p. 905, 1789: Angola. 

 Specimens collected: 



1 male, Dire Daoua, Ethiopia, October 17, 1911. 



2 males, 1 female, Bodessa, Ethiopia, May 25-27, 1912. 



Soft parts: Bill red, shading to black at the base above in the 

 female (all red in the male) ; feet and claws brown. 



I have not enough pertinent material to decide upon the merits of 

 cinereigula Cabanis, and therefore I follow Sclater -'" in recognizing 

 no races of P. afra. Van Someren ^^ calls coastal Kenyan birds P. 

 afra griseigularis Neumann, a name probably intended to read P. a. 

 cinereigula Cabanis. According to van Someren, the coastal race 

 is a valid one, and ranges inland to Voi. He suggests that the birds 

 of the Kikuyu country may prove to be an undescribed subspecies 

 being larger and more greenish on the back and more greenish yellow 

 on the breast than the coastal ones. I have compared birds from 

 Ethiopia, Kenya Colony, Tanganyika Territory, and Nyasaland, and 

 find no worth-while differences between any two of them. 



The yellow-backed pytilia occurs from the Sudanese — Ugandan 

 border and southern Ethiopia south to Nyasaland and central Mo- 

 zambique, thence west through the Katanga and Northern Rhodesia to 

 northern Angola and the Portuguese Congo. 



The present specimens are in somewhat abraded condition; their 

 dimensions are as follows: Males — wing, 58-60.5; tail, 3-3.5-36.5; cul- 

 men, 9-11; tarsus, 13,5-15 mm. Females — wing, 60.5; tail, 34; 

 culmen, 10; tarsus, 15 mm. 



Dire Daoua appears to be the northernmost locality from which 

 this species has been recorded. Lovat collected it at Feyambiro and 

 Lake Chercher.^^ Feyambiro is southeast of Harrar, and is the near- 

 est locality record to the present one from Dire Daoua. 



2' Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der schwedischen zoologischen Expedition nach dem Kili- 

 mandjaro . . . Deutsch-Ostafrika, etc., Vogel, p. 128, 1908. 

 2^ Systema avium ^thiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 785, 1930. 

 ^ Systema avium ^thiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 787, 1930. 

 2« Nov. Zool., vol. 29, p. 162, 1922. 

 « Published on by Ogilvie-Grant, Ibis, 1900, p. 129. 



