292 ZOOLOGY. 



black, all the feathers except the outermost with four 

 white bands, the anterior of which is concealed by the 

 coverts, and a narrow white tip, quills obsoletely banded 

 with dusky above, distinctly with white, especially on 

 the inner webs, below. All the under parts closely 

 banded with ferruginous, except the throat, where the 

 stripes are grey, the under tail-coverts, which are pure 

 white with only traces of bands, and the thigh-coverts, 

 which are pure ferruginous. I can, however, detect 

 slight traces of banding even on these. The measure- 

 ments are, — whole length about 15 inches, wing 7'8, 

 tail 6"5, tarsus 2'4. There is a specipien of N. tachiro 

 from South Africa in the British Museum, which agrees 

 well with that from Abyssinia in colouring. 



I only once met with this bird, which must be very rare 

 in Abyssinia, as both Rtippell and Von Heuglin seem also 

 to have obtained it only on one occasion each, the latter 

 procuring three specimens. I found a pair at Goona 

 Goona, near Senaf^, in the middle of March, evidently 

 breeding, chasing each other through bushes beneath a 

 small waterfall, but I only succeeded in shooting the 

 male. 



11. Nisus (Micronisus) niloticus, Sund. 



Melierax gabar, Riipp. Syst. Uebers. No. 44. 



M. niloticus, Sundevall, Ofvera. K. Vet. Akad. Forh. 1850, p. 132. 



Nisus gabar, Heugl. Om. N. O. Afr. No. 46. 



Iris dull red ; cere and legs orange : bill dusky. 



I shot a pair of these birds at Ailat, west of Massowa. 

 They appear to me to differ conspicuously from the 

 southern species N. gabar, Daud. in the less amount of 



