— 2^8 — 



name of airicauda to specimens from the districts around the 

 Great Lakes (Vogelf. Mittelafr. Seeugeb.. 1912, p. 312). Accor- 

 ding to N e u m a n n , however, amauroura should occur in the 

 districts around the Great Lakes and on the Upper Nile to Omo, 

 but Sclater and M.-Praed establish the range to: Uganda, 

 western British East Africa, the White Nile, Bahr el Ghazal and 

 S. Abessynia. At any rate this area of distribution practically 

 coincides with that for atricauda, whence it might be taken for 

 granted that the writers mentioned also consider this form a 

 synonym of amauroura. 



The specimens from Elgon are undoubtedly amauroura as 

 all have the upper parts greyish brown (mainly greyish), but 

 approaches — like Neumann's specimens — orientalis to 

 some extent, as two of them have the rump and the crissum 

 brownish red. The rectrices are all brownish black. 



Neumann (op. cit.) considers that north of Victoria 

 Nyanza mentalis and amauroura merges into each other. It may, 

 however, be more easy to suppose transition forms between 

 orientalis and amauroura, as the range of mentalis is West 

 Africa from the Gold Coast to N. Angola. But Sclater and 

 M.-Praed agree with Neumann's view and they add that they 

 have nevertheless not found any from these regions resembling 

 orientalis. 



Among my four specimens two (99) recall orientalis in the 

 light, pale colour of the under parts, which is almost whitish in 

 the centre, and also in the pale colour of the under tail-coverls 

 and one of them also has the reddish brown feathers of the 

 forehead very dark, almost greyish brown. But the under wing- 

 coverts are light rusty-brown in all of them. 



The other two (cfcT) are more uniformly yellowish brown 

 on the lower surface. Although they are shot at different times 

 they still show a distinct agreement in the colours of the dress — 

 the males as well as the females — whence it seems probable 

 that this is a difference between the sexes and that the females 

 are therefore lighter than the males. 



Wing, tarsus, 



75, 75 mm. 28, 30 mm. cfcf. 



75, 76 mm. 29, 30 mm. 99. 



Irides citron-yellow — paie-yellow. (Lonnberg (Birds coll. Sw. 

 Zool. Exped. B. E. A., 1911, p. 120) says that the iris oi orien- 

 talis is light brown); upper mandible dark greyish-brown, lower 

 mandible greyish blue; legs dark leaden grey. 



Cisiicola prinioides prinioides Neum. — Rchw. IIL p. 543. 



1 (5 ad. 24. 4. Kikuyu. _ 1 ^ ad. 7. 5. Londiani. - 6 ^^ ad. 28. 6.-30. 6. 

 3 QQ ad. 28. 6.— 30. 6 ; 3 (5(5 juv. 27. 6.-29. 6. Mount Elgon. 



