NO. 4 AVIAN GENUS CLAMATOR — FRIEDMANN 6$ 



primaries. However, in four of the specimens there was some whitish, 

 in the form of edges on the feathers of the throat, breast, abdomen, 

 and undertail coverts. The amount of such whitish areas varied in- 

 dividually ; in one unsexed example from Takaungu the feathers of 

 the abdomen and the undertail coverts were broadly edged with gray- 

 ish white; in another from the same place these pale edgings were 

 very narrow. In this connection, it may be recalled that in our discus- 

 sion of the variations in the normal phase, we described (supra) 

 one example, collected together with melanistic birds, in which the 

 entire underparts were white, heavily streaked with black from chin 

 to vent. This specimen might equally well be described as a melanistic 

 polymorph in which all the ventral feathers had white edgings. 



The white spots at the tips of the outer tail feathers not only vary 

 in the number of rectrices on which they occur, but also in the size 

 of the individual spots ; in some cases they are restricted to the outer 

 web, in others they extend across both webs of these feathers. The 

 presence of these tail spots is the only constant difference, aside from 

 the total size of the bird, and its corresponding wing and tail dimen- 

 sions, between this phase of levaillanfii and the corresponding 

 melanistic morph of C. jacobinus serratiis. Very occasionally a speci- 

 men of levaillantii may lack these white tail spots, as in one taken 

 near Lake Chahafi, Kibwezi, southwestern Uganda, reported by Pit- 

 man (1931). He implied that there was another similar one from 

 former French West Africa in the British Museum, but I failed to 

 find it when I examined the series there in 1962. 



A number of the specimens of this black phase studied were in 

 various stages of molt. They revealed that the juvenal plumage (or, 

 at least, subadult plumage) is uniformly dull fuscous brown on the 

 entire upper side of the body and head. In some examples the entire 

 underparts, as well, were of this color, but in others the abdomen 

 and sides were paler, more of a dirty brownish white. Even these 

 young specimens had the white wing speculum as in the adults. 



Clamator jacobinus 



Unlike C. levaillantii, this species varies geographically in its plum- 

 age characters, and has been divided into three recognizable races. 

 Typical jacobinus, a small race (wings 135.5 to 150; tail 146 to 172 

 mm.), with white throat and breast, the feathers of the lower throat 

 and breast Math the faint, dusky shaft streaks either practically want- 

 ing or pale and very narrow, hairlike lines, occurs in southern India 

 and Ceylon, and is partly migratory as some of its members winter in 



