NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XX:I. 191B. 263 



darker than in Neumann's aucupum. On the other hand a male from Humbe in 

 Mossamedes has the hind-neck of as light a straw-yellow as we find in any N.E. 

 African examples. 



12(i. Pyrenestes ostrinus ostrinus (Vieill.) 



(Cf. Neumann, Joimt. f. Om. 1910, p. 527, where an admirable revision of the interesting genus 



Pi/rmestex is given. ) 



(? ad., Kadnna, Kaduna River, province of Zaria. 

 Bill from nostril 13, wing 76 mm. 



127. Hypochaera neumanni Alex. 



or 



Hypochaera ultramarina (Gm.) 



All adult male from Zaria (17.x. 1912), like one which I shot at Loko on the 

 Benue, July 23, 1885, appear to me to belong to //. ultramarinu, though they 

 are slightly more steel-blue ; this applies still more to a male collected in Dongola 

 by Bohndorff. If the Nigerian birds are separable from ultramarina, they would 

 have to be called //. neumanni (Alexander, Bull. B. 0. Club xxiii. p. 33, described 

 from Yo, near Lake Chad), though the types are still a slight shade more greenish, 

 but hardly different from the one Dongolan bird, mentioned above. Other Nubian 

 birds agree absolutely with those from Abyssinia, Lado, etc. I am therefore 

 inclined to think that the more or less greenish gloss, to the extent in which it 

 is seen in these birds, is merely individual, and that therefore the specimens of 

 this bird from Nubia to Nigeria belong to the same form. Nigeria is an interesting 

 country for Hypochaera ; on the Niger (Borgn, Rabba, Amambara !) we find 

 H. inlsoni Hart. {Nov. Zool. 1901, p. 342 — named in memory of my unfortunate 

 friend Captain Malcolm Wilson, who fell in a fight with natives on the Upper 

 Niger). It is most interesting that this form, or at least a very close ally, also 

 ranges to North-East Africa, as Mr. A. L. Butler of Khartum shot a male at Sheikh 

 Tomb(5 in the summer of 1909. 



Then there is the bird from the Gongola River, which Boyd Alexander called 

 II. nigeriae {Bull. B. 0. Club xxiii. p. 15). It is a brown-winged bird and quite 

 glossy green, totally different from //. aenea {=■ " ckalybeata"). In the original 

 description it is not said that the wings are browu, and with regard to "//. neumanni" 

 it must be said that its comparison with " chabjbeata " is misleading ; it should 

 have been compared with ultramarina, but perhaps Alexander meant the latter 

 by what he called " chabjbeata" as on p. 15 he called the Senegambian bird aenea. 

 The latter appears to occur west of Sokoto ! 



128. Hypochaera aenea aenea (= chalybeata). 



A male in moult from the brown plumage, shot at Dosso, west of Sokoto, 

 appears to belong to the Senegal form. 



129. Ortygospiza atricollis atricoUis (Vieill.) 



Friiigilla olrimllh Vieillot, Nniir. Diet. d'Hixt. i\af. (nouv. ed.) xii. p. 183 (Senegal). 



1 ¥ , province of Zaria. 



This specimen undoubtedly belongs to the uniformly brown-backed " typical " 

 Senegal form. Mr. Ogilvie-Grant descril)ed a darker form from Gunnal in 

 18 



