66 EINAR LÖNNBERG. BIRDS. 



Dendromus nubicus (Gm.). 



Rchw. II, p. 178. 



The first specimen was shot when hammering on a dead and dry tree at the Home- 

 stead, Nairobi. It was a male with the colour ot the iris påle vinaceous red inclining to 

 lilac. If this statement is compared with the notes in the literature it will be apparent 

 that the colour of this organ is very variable. The feet were påle olive grey. In a female 

 shot at Embu borna the iris was vinaceous red. Length of wing 107 — 110 in three males, 

 106 mm. in the female. 



The same Woodpecker was also found to be rather common in the thornbush coun- 

 try north of Guaso Nyiri river. The specimens from the latter locality are, however, 

 rather strikingly different from those collected at Nairobi and Embu, and agree quite well 

 with the description which Reichenow 1 has published for a »var. pallida». Thus the 

 upper parts are paler with larger und denser whitish spöts. The white bars on the secon- 

 daries are larger. The white colouration on the ear-coverts is do minating, thus white 

 with black stripes, while the Nairobi specimen has black ear-coverts with narrow white 

 stripes. The round black spöts on breast and flanks are decidedly much smaller in the 

 specimens from Guaso Nyiri than in the one from Nairobi. 



Seeing this difference and finding that Reichenow records some of his »pallida »- 

 specimens from Barawa in the Somali country with which according to my investigations 

 the country round the lower Guaso Nyiri agrees from a faunistic point of view, I was at 

 first much inclined to regard »var. pallida» as a geographic subspecies. Considering, 

 however, that other »pallida »-specimens were from Mpapua in Ussagara and finding that 

 a specimen collected by Sjöstedt at the Meru mountain in German East Africa has the 

 same appearance I have been obliged to abandon this view and leave the question open. 

 I may add, however, that a specimen from Gheleb, Eritrea, in the Stockholm museum be- 

 longs to the »pallida »-type. Erlanger 2 has also stated the great variability of this species. 



This Woodpecker as perhaps also others are regarded by the natives as giving a 

 good omen. For instance one morning soon after leaving our camp at Guaso Nyiri when 

 we heard this Woodpecker calling my gunbearer, aMkamba, exclaimed: »Leo pika nyama» 

 ( = today [we will] shoot game). 3 A similar belief appears to widely spread as I have 

 learned from the Swedish Missionary Mr. K. Rodhén that this same bird of which he has 

 given me specimens from Gheleb, Eritrea, there is called »Iza» 4 and regarded with great 

 superstition. If its call is heard from one side it is a good omen, b ut heard from the other 

 side it is equally bad, and the man who hears it from the wrong side immediately returns 

 home to evade the evil that otherwise might strike him. 



It appears to be the red on the head which give these birds their importance in the 

 eyes of the native tribes, as also the big Black Woodpecker in Europé is or has been con- 

 nected with many fables and tales. 



1 Vögel Afrikas II, p. 179. 



2 Journ. f. Ornitli. Jahrg. 1905, p. 475 — 477. 



:; A.s I about an hour låter shot and killed a Hon the belief in the good omen probably was nineh strengthened. 

 ' Like some other birds with red on the vertex of the head. 



