Vol. 5, p. 323-324. September 2, 1930. 



Occasional Papers 



OF THE 



Boston Society of Natural History. 



NOTES ON SHEPPARDIA CYORNITHOPSIS WITH 

 DESCRIPTION OF A NEW RACE. 



BY HERBERT FRIEDMANN. 1 



The little aberrant thrushes sometimes known as akalats are 

 scarce birds in collections, and their racial forms are conse- 

 quently poorly understood. In the second part of his Systema 

 Avium Aethiopicarum Sclater (1930, p. 477) lists three races of 

 Sheppardia cyornithopsis and mentions a Nyasaland bird in 

 another genus as Alethe sharpei (p. 480). This last is, however, 

 not an Alethe, but a race of Sheppardia cyornithopsis. Sclater's 

 arrangement of Alethe is unfortunate as it contains not only a 

 Sheppardia, but two forms (poliothorax and polioparea) that are 

 not even thrushes, but babblers of the genus Illadopsis. 



Sheppardia cyornithopsis ranges from Cameroon across the 

 Belgian Congo to Uganda and southwestern Kenya Colony, and 

 also occurs in the Nyika Plateau, north of Lake Nyasa. Between 

 the last named locality and the Lumbwa country in south- 

 western Kenya Colony the species was not known to exist. 

 Consequently, it was rather surprising to find that Loveridge 

 had obtained three specimens of this species in the Uluguru 

 Mountains. These appear to represent an undescribed form, 

 which I take pleasure in naming after the distinguished ornith- 

 ologist of Harvard University, to whom I am indebted for the 

 privilege of studying the splendid Tanganyikan material under 

 his care. 



Sheppardia cyornithopsis bangsi, subsp. nov. 



Type. — Museum of Comparative Zoology no. 134507; adult male, collected 

 in the Uluguru Mountains, Tanganyika Territory, May 23, 1921, by Arthur 

 Loveridge. 



Subspedfic Characters. — Somewhat intermediate between sharpei of the 

 Nyika Plateau and aequatorialis of Uganda and southwestern Kenya Colony. 

 It agrees with the former in having wide white superciliaries, and the whole 



1 Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



323 



