265 



as it is said to occur together with the typical form in the Kat- 

 anga. This is a point that I cannot decide as I have no material 

 from that region, but a specimen from Nyanza, Belgian Congo 

 (west side of Lake Tanganyika) is somewhat intermediate in 

 nature between croceus and fulleborni. 



Gyldenstolpe {loc. cit.) notes that two specimens from Moss- 

 amedes differ from all the rest of his series of M. c. croceus in 

 lacking the stripes on the sides of the body and the sides of the 

 breast. They are slightly darker on the upperparts than croceus 

 and differ from fulleborni in having pure yellow underparts. If 

 these characters be found to be constant, the Mossamedes birds 

 will be worth naming as a fourth race. However, it may be 

 noted that I have seen specimens from Ruanda and Uganda 

 that also lacked these stripes, but were pure yellow below. 

 I have assumed them to be slightly intermediate in character 

 between croceus and fulleborni, but nearer the former. As far 

 as I know there are no Macronyx croceus south of Mossamedes (in 

 Damaraland or Namaqualand, or in Bechuanaland to the east) 

 so that on geographic grounds it would be difficult to account for 

 intermediacy in Mossamedes. 



Of all the species of the genus Macronyx perhaps the least well 

 known is M. aurantiigula. This form is of interest in that it 

 serves to connect two such diverse types as M. croceus and M. 

 fiavicollis. Hitherto M. aurantiigula has been recorded only 

 from the coastal districts of East Africa from the Pangani 

 River in northern Tanganyika Territory north to Malindi in 

 Kenya Colony, and inland to Lake Manyara and the plains 

 east of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanganyika Territory and to 

 the Athi River in Kenya Colony. Consequently it was interest- 

 ing to find that the Childs Frick Expedition procured a specimen 

 in the Tharaka district north of the Tana River, and east of 

 Mount Kenia, an extension of range of some 150 miles. Further- 

 more, Donaldson Smith collected another many years before on 

 the Tana River, but this record has apparently remained un- 

 published. His specimen is now in the collections of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, to which institution I am 

 indebted for the privilege of examining it. I have carefully 

 compared these two northern birds with a series of five from 



