324 Mr. A. L. Butler on the 



55. Lamprotornis porphyropterus Riipp. 



a. S • Fachi Shoya, White Nile, Nov. 14, 1902. 



b. ? . River Rahad, April 6, 1901. 



c. $ . Roseires, May 11, 1904. 



d. $. „ June 18, 1904. 



Purple-winged Glossy Starlings are common on the Upper 

 Blue Nile and its tributaries, on the Abyssinian frontier, on 

 the well-wooded parts of the White Nile and Bahr-el-Ghazal, 

 and iu Kordofan. 



I must confess to being rather puzzled as to the short-tailed 

 and long-tailed forms (L. porphyropterus and L. aneocephalus) 

 into which this species has been divided. Mr. Ogilvie- 

 Grant ('Ibis/ 1902, p. 402) seems to distinguish them 

 principally by the tails, giving measurements, among which 

 6*1 inches is the maximum for L. porphyropterus, and 8*35 

 inches for L. aneocephalus. 



My difficulty is that these measurements do not seem to 

 me representative, and I am sure that the collection of a 

 long series would furnish larger measurements for both forms 

 — in the case of L. aneocephalus very much so. 



One of my Roseires skins (a male) has the central rectrices 

 7*8 inches long, i. e. well within the dimensions given for 

 L. aneocephalus. But near El Obeid, in Kordofan, I saw 

 some birds with tails so very much longer — undoubtedly the 

 true L. aneocephalus — that I hesitate to ascribe my Blue or 

 White Nile birds to the same form, and should call them 

 L. porphyropterus. 



Unfortunately I have no skins of these very long-tailed 

 Kordofan birds. I was travelling hard at the time, and only 

 shot one with a length of tail which particularly attracted my 

 attention. This was an adult male, in moult, with the head 

 covered with quills, and I did not skin it. One of the central 

 rectrices had been shed ; the other I pulled out and measured, 

 "but subsequently lost. Its length was exactly 11 inches; 

 thus it exceeded the maximum length given by Mr. Ogilvie- 

 Grant for L. aneocephalus by more than that, in turn, exceeds 

 his measurements for L. porphyropterus ! 



