BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 451 



ESTRILDA ASTRILD PEASEI Shelley 



Figure 30 



Estrilda peasei Shei^let, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vol. 13, p. 75, 1903 : Juffi Dunsa, 



Ethiopia. 

 Specimens collected: 



1 male, Arussi Plateau, Ethiopia, February 27, 1912. 



1 male, 1 female, Aletta, Ethiopia, March 11, 1912. 



The Abyssinian waxbill inhabits the highlands of Ethiopia from 

 the northern Hawash area and northern Shoa to Arussi-Gallaland. 

 It is the largest and deepest pinkish of all the forms of the common 

 waxbill. 



The present specimens are in fairly fresh plumage. Their meas- 

 urements are as follows : Males — wing, 50, 50.5 ; tail, 50, 52 ; culmen, 

 9, 9.5; tarsus, 14, 15 mm. Female — wing, 49; tail, 48; culmen, 8; 

 tarsus, 14 mm, respectively. The February bird is in molt. 



Heuglin^* found this bird up to 6,000 and 7,000 feet above the sea, 

 but he assumed that they did not breed at such altitudes. Pease 

 and Lovat both obtained specimens but did not record much as to 

 the habits of the bird. Erlanger ^^ found a nest with five fresh eggs 

 on May 9 at Cunni, and another on June 9 at Arba in the Danakil 

 Steppes. 



Mearns noted this waxbill as follows : Aletta, March 7-13, 50 seen ; 

 Loco, March 13-15, 50; Abaya Lakes, March 18-26, 800; spring be- 

 tween Abaya Lakes and Gardula, March 26-29, 200 birds. 



ESTRILDA RHODOPYGA RHODOPYGA Sundevall 



Estrilda rhodopyga rhodopijga Sundevall, Of v. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Forh., 

 vol. 7, p. 126, 1850: Northeastern Africa; Sennar (see Shelley, The birds 

 of Africa, vol. 4, p. 206, 1905). 



Specimens collected : 2 males, 1 female, Sadi Malka, Ethiopia, January 28, 1912. 



There are two races of the crimson-rumped waxbill — the nominate 

 form, of northeastern Africa from Kordofan and Sennar east across 

 most of Ethiopia to western Somaliland, and centralis, of the area 

 from the Upper White Nile district of the Sudan, Uganda, and 

 southern Shoa, south through Kenya Colony to Ugogo in Tanganyika 

 Territory and to the Kivu district in the eastern Belgian Congo. 



Sclater ^^ considers E. r. polia Mearns " a synonym of rhodopyga^ 

 but I find, on examining the type, that it really is identical with 

 centralis, as is also hypochra Mearns. The two races are not too well 

 differentiated at best, and to recognize more forms is merely making 



" Ornithologie Nordost-Afrika's, etc., vol. 1, p. 604, 1869. 



^Journ. fur Orn., 1907, p. 20. 



w Systema avium .a<:thiopicarum, pt. 2, p. 797, 1930. 



^ Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 61, no. 9, p. 1, 1913 : Gato River, southern Abyssinia. 



