DESCRIPTIONS OF FIFTEEN NEW AFRICAN BIRDS 

 By EDGAR A. MEARNS 



ASSOCIATE IN ZOOLOGY, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



This paper is the fourteenth deahng- with the results of the Smith- 

 sonian African Expedition under the direction of Col. Theodore 

 Roosevelt. It embraces descriptions of fifteen new species and sub- 

 species of birds, ten of which were discovered by members of the 

 expedition. 



Pternistes leucoscepns (G. R. Gray), a plastic species of the East 

 African region, has been divided into several subspecies in the 

 northern portion of its range. Hitherto, the form found over much 

 of British and German East Africa has been known as Pternistes 

 leucoscepns infiiscatns (Cabanis), but in the series of thirty speci- 

 mens from this region in the collection of the United States Na- 

 tional Museum, there are two undescribed subspecies from Mount 

 Kenia, and Mount Kilimanjaro, respectively. These are the darkest 

 forms of the species, and have a preponderance of chestnut color on 

 the under parts. 



Cabanis's description and very satisfactory colored plate (v. d. 

 Decken's Reise, 1869, pi. 14) show that the form infnscatus, de- 

 scribed by him from Lake Jipe, German East Africa, is the widely 

 ranging plains race, and neither of the mountain forms described 

 below, from both of which it may be readily distinguished by having 

 the tail and wings distinctly cross-banded, and the dark centers of 

 the long feathers of the flanks undivided by a central white shaft- 

 stripe. 



PTERNISTES LEUCOSCEPUS KENIENSIS, new subspecies 

 Mount Kenia Bare-throated Spurfowl 



Type-Specimen.— Adult male. Cat. No. 214721, U. S. N. M, 

 Collected on the west slope of Mount Kenia, on the N'joro or Kaso- 

 rongai River, 6500 feet, British East Africa, October 18, 1909, by 

 Edgar A. Mearns. Original number, 17 164. 



Characters.— Bifievs from Pternistes leucoscepns infnscatus in its 

 generally darker coloration ; in the absence of transverse bars on the 

 wings and tail, which instead of being barred are minutely speckled 

 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 56, No. 20. 



