114 QUELEA THIOPICA 
in separate flocks, notwithstanding their habit of mingling 
whilst feeding. He also met with it while in company with 
Jameson, at Kooroomoorooi Pan in Betuanaland. In Mata- 
beleland, the species has been procured at the Kami River by 
Mr. Hellmayr. Along the Zambesi, according to Mr. Boyd 
Alexander, it is ‘‘ locally distributed and found in large flocks 
frequenting the extensive beds of fish-cane near the river and 
making them resound with their singing, which is not unlike 
that of Starlings when together. At the end of December the 
males were in full breeding dress, while the plumage of the 
females had also undergone a change, the feathers of the upper 
parts having become darker, especially on the crown, the 
buffy-white edges to the secondaries and feathers of the mantle 
having disappeared, the yellow edgings to the quills being 
more distinct, and the eye-stripe and the whole of the under 
parts being washed with a sandy buff.” 
In British Central Africa specimens have been collected by 
Mr. Whyte on the Nyika Plateau, at Karonga and on Mount 
Mlosa, and by Sir Alfred Sharpe at Lake Moero. 
Further north in Hast Africa to the confines of North-east 
Africa Q. quelea and Q. xthiopica have apparently freely inter- 
bred ; but as a rule these hybrids—Q. intermedia, Reichen.— 
incline more towards @. #thiopica than to @. quelea, from which 
one may infer that the former is possibly the older race and 
that Q. quelea is scarcely more than a subspecies. 
One of these forms has been procured by Senhor Cardosa 
at Cape Delgado, where it is called by the natives ‘‘ Epera.” 
Quelea ethiopica. 
Ploceus sanguinirostris, var. ethiopicus, Sundey. Gify. K. Vet. Akad. 
Forh. Stockh. 1850, p. 126. 
Quelea ethiopica, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xiii. p. 259, pl. 10, fig. 5 (1890) ; 
Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 352 (1896); Grant, Ibis, 1904, p. 257 Upper 
Galla, 
