— 213 — 



The character of hayeri cited by Lonnberg; "that the 

 frontal band is less broad, but more sharply defined l3ehind than 

 in Z. jacksoni", agrees with only one of my Londiani specimens. 

 But on examining the 14 Elgon specimens more closely, I found 

 a rather considerable variation among them both as regards the 

 breadth of the frontal band and its extent backwards. In some 

 it is very narrow and shades almost imperceptibly into the dull 

 yellow-green, in others it is wider and sharply defined, and in 

 others again it is as in the Londiani specimens. I therefore do 

 not believe that the character given by Lonnberg is charac- 

 teristic for any special Londiani form, but is probably to be 

 regarded only as an individual variation of jacksoni. 



Whether Z. v. garguensis recently described by M earns 

 (Smithson. Misc. Coll., vol. 61, No. 20, 1913) from the north of 

 the Northern Guaso Nyiro River in British East Africa, with 

 its "equally narrow white eye- ring and darker, more grayish 

 coloration", is only a synonym of jacksoni, I cannot decide. 



Zosterops virens kikuyuensis Sharpe. — Rchw. IIL p. 431. 

 2 (5(5 ad. 18. 4. Kiambu. 



In the forests of the Nairobi districts this bird was common. 



Lonnberg (Birds coll. Sw. Zool. Exp. B. E. A., 1911, 

 p. 117), like Shelley, seems to be inclined to consider ^i- 

 kuyuensis synonymous with jacksoni, but in my opinion both of 

 them are good and distinct forms, for, among the 17 specimens of 

 jacksoni from Elgon, there is not one which has its head, right 

 behind the eyes, yellow like kikuyuensis. 



On the other hand, the second character, broader eye-ring, 

 given by Neumann (op. cit.) for kikuyuensis is by no means 

 a feature of this form, for most of the jacksoni specimens have 

 just as broad an eye-ring as the former, sometimes even broader. 



Neumann gives the range of the two forms so that 

 jacksoni occurs on the mountains west of Massai Salt-grave, i. e. 

 on Mau, Nandi and Elgon, while kikuyuensis appears east of 

 this grave, that is to say, on Kenia and in the Kikuyu country. 

 Lonnberg (op. cit.) extends the occurence of this form right 

 to Ruwenzori in the west, since Ogilvie-Grant (Zool. Res. 

 Ruw. Exp., 1910, p. 333), on the authority of Shelley, makes 

 Z. scotti Neum. synonymous with jacksoni. Reichenow con- 

 siders scotti, however, as a- distinct form and separates it from 

 jacksoni (Vogelf. Mittelafr. Seengeb., 1912, p. 346, 347). 

 Wing 58, 58 mm. tarsus 18 mm. 



Irides, bill and legs as in the preceding. 



