NO. 4 AVIAN GENUS CLAMATOR — FRIEDMANN 8l 



southern Tanganyika between December and April. All his own 

 northern Tanganyika records were of ". . . silent non-breeding birds 

 in worn plumage or very slow and irregular moult like the February 

 birds of extreme southern Tanganyika . . . This influx of non-breed- 

 ing birds into northern Tanganyika fits in strikingly with Whistler's 

 hypothesis that the Indian population migrates to Africa after breed- 

 ing in the northern summer ; and clearly the birds, also non-breeding, 

 that are so common in Darfur June to September must have quite a 

 different origin . . ." 



In Kenya and Uganda, Jackson (in Jackson and Sclater, 1938, pp. 

 495-496) found pica to be a local migrant, rarely if ever remaining 

 long in one locality, arriving in November and leaving in April and 

 May. He noted these birds, apparently traveling north, from March 

 20 to April 16 at Nimule, Uganda, and moving south in November at 

 Lake Albert. In the Nyando Valley he found them common early 

 in May and scarce at the end of that month. "The same influx and 

 departure after a few weeks' sojourn takes place in the coast and 

 bush-veld regions of Kenya Colony ... It is particularly plentiful 

 in the Taru wilderness in November and December, and again in 

 April . . ." However, there is now definite evidence that pica breeds 

 in Kenya (Ngong) and in Uganda, so here it appears that there are 

 resident birds, migrants from elsewhere in Africa, and migrants from 

 India, making the resulting situation difficult to interpret with cer- 

 tainty in many specific instances. The intra-African migrants appear 

 to be of both pica and serratus stocks. Similarly, there is some evi- 

 dence that both pica and jacobinus wander to Africa from India. 



It is unfortunately true that, so far, we have no direct proof, of 

 marked individual birds, demonstrating the migration of pied cuckoos 

 from India to Africa, but there are inferential considerations that 

 strongly point in this direction. Long ago Whistler (1928) compiled 

 an account of the postulated migration in the hope that it might 

 stimulate observers in India to fill in the gaps in the information he 

 was able to bring together. He showed that the bird (pica) is ex- 

 tremely numerous in northern India during the rainy season, when 

 it breeds there, and that it is definitely absent from there the rest of 

 the year. He expressed his attitude by stating that if the birds do not 

 leave India and go to Africa ". . . we cannot say at present where 

 so great a mass of individuals can winter unrecorded ; it can only be 

 in southern or southeastern India or in Ceylon . . . Legge's evidence 

 appears to have ruled out Ceylon. As to southern and southeastern 

 India, we have no definite evidence either for or against the sup- 

 position . . ." 



