— 24 — 



pair of Anas sparsa and out of the sedge-vegetation that skirted 

 the lake at certain points a GaUinago nigripennis rose into 

 the air. 



The ornithological collections from Elgon contain in all 

 628 specimens. 



The Zoo-geographical Relations of Mount Elgon. 



Opinions may perhaps differ with respect to the zoo-geo- 

 graphical position of Mount Elgon. As already pointed out the 

 bird-kingdom on the eastern slopes towards Uganda is of a more 

 West-African character but with respect to the eastern slopes 

 which lie within Kenia Colony (British East Africa) one can 

 scarcely make such an assertion. Reich enow has named the 

 easternmost province of the West-African region the Central 

 Africa Lake-district, which includes the countries round Albert 

 Nyanza, Albert Edward Nyanza, Lake Kiwu and the northern 

 parts of Victoria Nyanza and so on. Now Elgon being situated 

 just north of Victoria Nyanza it is questionable whether it should 

 be reckoned to the Central African Lake-district or not. On the 

 map which R e i c Ji e n o w has appended in Vogelf. Mittelafr. 

 Seengeb. and on which he has given the extent of this province, 

 the boundary seems to run south and west of Elgon and the old 

 volcano should thus fall within the East- and South-African 

 steppe region (at least the eastern and north-eastern slopes). 

 Thus the Elgon neighbourhood should form an intermediate link 

 between the West-African forest region and the East -African 

 steppe region. And in respect to the bird-life this seems to be 

 the case. 



During the months our expedition spent on Elgon we did not, 

 it is true, procure so many birds of West-African affinity. Still, 

 we shot Cryptospiza ocularis^ Turdinus p^jrrJwpterus elgonensis, 

 Miisosophaga violacea, Gymnohucco honapartei cinereiceps, all of 

 which are previously known from East Africa. On the other hand, 

 Indicator conirostris conirostris i\nd Centropus senegalensis incertus 

 have not been found before so for eastwards as Elgon or any- 

 where else in the eastern steppe regions. The former is a pure 

 forest-bird, the latter an inhabitant of the plains. The investi- 

 gations made during the last few years into the ornithology of 

 Central Africa have so often shown that quite a number of forest- 

 birds, previously only known from West Attica, even occur in 

 the forest round the high East African mountains (Elgon, Kenia, 

 Kilimandjaro and others) with closely related or similar birds, 

 but are not found in intervening regions. L o n n b e r g (K. Sv. 

 Vet. Akad., Arsbok, 1918, p. 260) explains such problems of 

 discontinuity by assuming that a more or less contiuous forest 

 once covered the whole of the area in which these animals now 

 live and that the scattered forests left are only the remains of 



