Vol. 5, p. 257-259. April jT, 1930. 



Occasional Papers 



OF THE 



Boston Society of Natural History. 



^'^^'•^'Kark new to science from southern 



IS30 



ETHIOPIA. 



^"BY HERBERT FRIEDMANN.^ 



iACiong 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 tliat it appears 

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



Mirafra pulpa, sp. no v. 



Tijpe. — -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 



