272 PYTELIA CITERIOR 
In the British Museum there are two female specimens, 
one from Khartoum and the other from El-Dueim, which I 
refer to this form, and a full plumaged male from Shebesha in 
the same district, obtained by Mr. Witherby, who writes : 
‘“* Wherever the Sont-trees were thick enough to form a wood 
these birds were generally to be found.” Mr. A. L. Butler 
has shown me a typically coloured specimen he shot January 2, 
1903, at Fatasha, twenty miles west of Omdurman, and he 
writes : ‘Common in the Sont-trees round Fatasha and breed- 
ing there in January. Its call-note is a long plaintive whistle. 
Capt. Dunn procured the species at the Habeish Well in 
West Kordofan. I also found it abundant in the thorny bush 
round Gedaref in April and May, when they were just getting 
the red feathers on the face and were in full plumage by June. 
At Om Muttra Meila (north of Rahad) they were plentiful 
when I camped there, January 7 and 8, hopping freely about 
close to my tent.” 
P. jessei is represented in the British Museum by three 
males collected by Mr. Jesse at the Anseba Valley, Bejook and 
Rairo, and a female from Annesley Bay obtained by Dr. 
Blanford, who writes: ‘‘ Occasionally met with near the coast 
and also in the Anseba Valley up to 4,000 or 4,500 feet above 
the sea.” The specimen shot by Lord Lovat at the Blue Nile 
is in immature plumage. 
According to Heuglin, the species inhabits the warmer parts 
of North-east Africa, the Samhar coasts, Bogos, the southern 
parts of Nubia and Takah, the Blue and White Nile and 
Kordofan. They were generally met with singly or in pairs 
frequenting clumps of trees and bushes and hopping to and fro 
from the lower branches and the ground; they were never 
found among rocks and rarely in the open grass country. 
