4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



Characters. — Most closely related to Cisticola subruticapilla borea 

 Mearns/ from the Laclo region of the Upper Nile, but smaller, with 

 the mantle more distinctly streaked with blackish, and the under parts 

 more buffy. 



Description of the adult male and female in breeding plumage. — 

 Pileum and cervix buckthorn brown, with dark-brown centers to the 

 feathers ; mantle drab-brown with broad black shaft-stripes to the 

 feathers ; wings sepia, with drab edging to the wing-coverts and inner 

 secondaries, and with outer webs of quills bordered with prout's 

 brown ; middle pair of rectrices cinnamon-brown, subterminally 

 banded with brownish black, and tipped with clay color ; remaining 

 rectrices grayish brown, subterminally broadly banded with black, 

 and tipped with whitish drab ; chin and throat whitish ; middle of 

 chest, abdomen, and crissum buffy white, palest mesially ; sides of 

 chest, and flanks, pale, grayish drab ; thighs clay color ; axillars, under 

 wing-coverts, and inner webs of quills cinnamon-buff; iris dark red- 

 dish brown ; bill brownish black above, grayish flesh color below ; feet 

 and claws pale brown ; male with inside of mouth black ; female with 

 inside of mouth flesh color. 



Measurements of type (adult male). — Length of skin, 136; wing, 

 70; spurious primary, 28 x 5.5; tail, 61 ; culmen (chord), 14; tarsus, 

 24.5. 



Average measurements of forty adult males. — Wing, 67.4; tail, 

 58; culmen (chord), 13.9; tarsus, 23.6. 



Average measurements of eleven adult females. — Wing, 55.6; tail, 

 48.6 ; culmen (chord), 12.4 ; tarsus, 21.3. 



Geographical range. — Abaya Lake Basin, southern Abyssinia. 



Material. — Fifty-three specimens from the Abaya lakes and Gato 

 River Valley, near Gardulla, southern Abyssinia. 



CISTICOLA NATALENSIS NILOTICA, new subspecies 

 Jebel Grass-Warbler 



Type-specimen. — Adult female, Cat. No. 217132, U. S. National 

 Museum ; collected at " Rhino Camp," Lado Enclave, latitude 2° 55' 

 north, on the west bank of the Nile (Bahr el Jebel), some fifteen miles 

 north of the station of Wadelai, January 20, 1910, by Edgar A. 

 Mearns. (Original number, 18132.) 



Characters. — Most closely related to Cisticola uatalensis inexpec- 

 tata Neumann, but with a slightly longer tail and shorter, stouter bill. 



1 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 56, No. 25, p. 3, November 23, 

 1911. 



