South-easter)! Sierra Leone. 239 



]]'.). Pyrenestes coccineus. 



Pyrenestes coccineus Cass. ; Shelley, B. Africa, iv. pt. 1, 

 p. 282 (1905). 



Pyrenestes ostrinus (Yieill.) ; Reichen. Vog. Afrikas, iii. 

 p. 106 (1901). 



Rotifunk, October. Iris very dark crimson ; skin of upper 

 and under eyelids white; bill blue-black; feet and claws 

 dirty flesh-coloured. 



Jagbamah, August and September. 



Bo, August and September. 



A series of sixteen skins, which shew clearly the characters 

 of the male and female — the most marked difference being 

 the crimson arch which extends further down the breast of 

 the cock than of the hen. The most noticeable point about 

 this bird when alive is the very conspicuous pair of upper 

 and under eyelids of perfectly white skin, which gives it a 

 spectacled appearance. After death, these eyelids soon 

 become almost invisible. 



This bird's habits closely resemble those of Lac/onosticta 

 polionota, and it haunts the same swamps and farms as 

 Spermospiza fieematina. It is wily in the extreme, and 

 when it moves from one part of the swamp to another rises 

 high in the air, and then flies very quickly with many twists 

 and undulations. The only practicable way of obtaining 

 specimens is to discover a farm frequented by them, and then 

 to set a great many snares amongst the young rice. Both this 

 species and. Spermospiza hcematina find their way into the 

 snares in more or less equal numbers. A hen obtained on the 

 22nd August, which contained an egg, would seem to indicate 

 August and September as the breeding-months. 



120. Amauresthes eringilloides. 



Spermestes fringilloides (Lafr.) ; Shelley, B. Africa, iv. 

 pt. 1, p. 160 (1905). 



Amauresthes fringilloides Reichen. Vog. Afrikas,, iii. 

 p. 155 (1904). 



A scries of skins from Rotifunk (1902) and one from Bo 

 (1904). Iris and upper mandible black ; lower mandible 

 bluish slate-coloured; feet and claws blue-black. 



