NO. IO FOUR NEW AFRICAN THRUSHES — MEARNS 3 



GEOCICHLA PIAGGIiE KENIENSIS, new subspecies 



Mount Kenia Ground-Thrush 



Type-specimen. — Adult male, Cat. No. 215455, U. S. National 

 Museum ; caught in rat trap set in bamboo forest on the west slope of 

 Mount Kenia, at the altitude of 10,000 feet, British East Africa, 

 September 27, 1909, by J. Alden Loring. (Original number, 411.) 



Characters. — Closely related to Geocichla piaggice piaggice (A. 

 Bouvier), but general coloration darker; no white on tail-feathers; 

 eye-ring composed of specialized feathers, resembling those of the 

 genus Zosterops, forming a broad circle of white around the eye. 



Description of adult male and female. — General color of upper 

 parts olive-citrine, shading into saccardo's olive on rump and upper 

 tail-coverts ; head with forehead and supra-loral region argus brown 

 shading to the color of the back on cervix and auriculars ; lores black, 

 fading to chestnut in the anterior malar region ; orbital ring pure 

 white ; wing with lesser coverts grayish olive, with wide yellowish 

 olive tips ; median wing-coverts olivaceous black, broadly tipped 

 with fan-shaped white spots ; exposed portion of greater wing- 

 coverts olive, with the white terminal spots chiefly confined to the 

 outer webs ; primary coverts dark sepia, their outer webs broadly 

 banded with yellowish citrine ; wing-quills grayish brown, washed 

 with olive-citrine on outer webs of secondaries, and with tawny- 

 olive on the unemarginated portion of the outer webs of primaries; 

 tail saccardo's umber, the shafts white below ; no white tips to rec- 

 trices ; chin, throat, and jugulum amber brown, becoming ochra- 

 ceous-tawny on chest and flanks, rapidly fading to white on abdomen 

 and thighs ; under tail-coverts entirely white ; axillars with basal half 

 white, residue pale brownish gray ; under wing-coverts olive-brown 

 at base, white terminally ; wing-quills with inner webs white at base, 

 excepting the two outermost primaries, which have no white ; iris 

 hazel ; bill black ; feet pale brown, darker than in Geocichla gurneyi 

 raineyi. 



Description of young. — Four immature male topotypes, taken by 

 the author October 8 to 11, 1909, are assuming the adult plumage, 

 but are more or less spotted with brownish black, from the throat to 

 the chest, on a general background of sudan brown, composed of 

 mixed first and second plumages ; the dark markings, being terminal, 

 conform to the shapes of the feather-tips, varying from V-shape 

 (anteriorly) to crescentic ; wing-spots and abdomen, which in adults 

 are pure white, are faintly washed with orange-brown ; under tail- 

 coverts broadly margined with reddish brown instead of being 



