72 



to say only stuffed specimens, though the identical 

 birds when alive had inhabited the Prince's aviaries 

 for some time. This species is so rare that the Berlin 

 Museum has never possessed a specimen, so that I was 

 particularly delighted to find examples here, the first 

 I had ever seen. Further, to my surprise, a few weeks 

 later Herr Snickt, of Brussels, advertised two pairs in 

 the "Gefiederte Welt," which Herr Schuster, the chief 

 of the Luderitz Art Publishing firm of Berlin, obtained, 

 and I am in the fortunate position of no: only having 

 a pair of these birds before me as I write, but of also 

 being able to give the hitherto unobtainable description 

 of the hen. 



First, it must be noted that in disposition and 

 habits the Masked Firefinch resembles the Lavender 

 Finch rather than the Common Firefinch. It never 

 shuffles its wings up and down in the peculiar way so 

 characteristic of the latter bird, but it does so from 

 side to side just as the former does. According to 

 Herr Snickt it is one of the most delicate of all the 

 Waxbills. Description : The male in full colour has the 

 crown (4) and occiput blackish-grey; the cheeks, ear- 

 lores, and throat black ; nape and back reddish-grey, 

 (each feather being a clear ash-grey on the whole 

 under surface and basal half of the upper, the terminal 

 half above being a lovely dark wine-red) ; wings, ashy- 



(4) In L. larvata the forehead and anterior third of the crown are black, 

 in this and it's slightly larger size diflfering from L. vinacea,\v\\\c\\ has most 

 of the crown grey with only a thin streak of black on the forehead. From 

 this description I am inclined to think that the birds Dr. Russ thought were 

 L. larvala were really vi'tiacea, as it applied exactly to the specimens of 

 the latter I had two years ago. Another point in favour of this supposition 

 is that West African birds were much more likely to be imported than those 

 from such ati inaccessible place as Abyssinia and it's neighbourhood must 

 have been when Dr. Kuss' book was written. 



