4 



Vol. 5, p. 257-259. Apbil 2, 1930. 



Occasional Papers 



OF THE 



Boston Society of Natural History. 



A LARK NEW TO SCIENCE FROM SOUTHERN 

 ETHIOPIA. 



BY HERBERT FRIEDMANN. 1 



Among the birds collected by the Childs Frick Expedition to 

 Ethiopia and Kenya Colony is a specimen of a lark of the genus 

 Mirafra which is so different from any known form that it appears 

 worthy of description as a specific entity. It may be known as 



Mirafra pulpa, sp. no v. 



Type. — U. S. Nat. Mus. no. 246241; adult male, collected at the Sagon 

 River (north side), southern Shoa, Ethiopia, on May 19, 1912, by Edgar A. 

 Mearns. 



Specific Characters. — Nearest to Mirafra passerina of South Africa, but 

 much darker, more rufous, less tawny above, and with a shorter, wider, more 

 heavily conical bill, and a shorter, more deeply curved claw on the hind toe 

 than passerina. Of the northeast African larks, M. cantillans seems to be its 

 closest ally, but pulpa has a larger, heavier and longer bill,, and is darker above. 



Description of Type. — Feathers of the forehead, crown, occiput, and inter-, 

 scapular region fuscous brown margined with Brussels brown; feathers of 

 upper back argus brown with a median fuscous brown streak and with edges of 

 Brussels brown; lower back and upper tail coverts fairly uniform Brussels 

 brown; upper wing coverts bright argus brown with fuscous shaft streaks and 

 pale, light tawny gray margins; primaries dark earth brown, externally mar- 

 gined with bright rufous hazel, narrowly tipped with whitish, internally edged 

 with pale tawny buff, the edgings in neither web reaching the shaft even 

 basally; outer secondaries like the primaries; inner ones more rufescent brown 

 and completely narrowly margined with buffy white; the two innermost 

 remiges argus brown with fuscous shaft streaks which expand basally, and 

 margined more broadly with buffy white; central pair of rectrices dark brown 

 edged with hazel; the outermost pair white except for a basal earth brown smear 

 on the inner webs extending distally along the outer edge of the inner web for 

 about half the length of the feather, the shaft white; the next pair with the 

 outer web almost wholly white, becoming brown next to the shaft, which, like 

 the inner web, is earth brown; rest of tail feathers dark fuscous brown; lores 

 and postocular stripe pale tawny, indistinctly marked off from the cheeks and 

 auriculars which are similarly pale tawny in color but which are finely streaked 



Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



257 



