— 29b — 



Range. — Spermestes hico/oi ranges troiigh Siena I.eone, 

 Libéria, the Gold Coast and Southern Nigeria. 



Its place is taken in Cameroon, Fernando Po, Gaboon, and 

 Northern Angola bv another species Spen/testes pociisis, distin- 

 guished bv having the basai half of the wings covered with white 

 spots and bv the barred rump and upper tail-coverts. In niv opinion 

 S. pociisis ranges Eastwards across Africa to the E. Belgian Congo, 

 Ruwenzori, Uganda and Abvssinia but tins bird has been separated 

 bv Reichenovv as S. p. stigmatophorus ( l'vpe localitv : Sesse 

 Island). Neither Shei.i.v (Bds of Afr. IV^ pt. I, p. 1(15) nor 

 ()(iiLViK-GRANT (ïrans. Zool. Soc, XIX, p. 2go) could see the 

 slightest différence between birds froni the Hast and West of 

 Africa, and therefore, I propose to keep ail under Fkaseks nanie. 

 With regard to Speriiietscs punctata Heuglin from Cameroon, 

 I agrée with Sheu.v and Sjostedt that the bird is doubtless 

 a hybrid between poensis and hicoior ; this unique spécimen is in 

 the British Muséum. As already stated I cannot agrée to S. poeiisis 

 being considered a subspecies of S. hicoior. 



(Not nearly so common as S. c. ciicuUatiis. It preters grass land 

 and feeds on the seed. — W. P. L.) 



Pholidornis rushiae rushiae ('). 



Diceum Rushiae Cassin, Proc. Ac. Sci., Philad., 1855, p. 325. — 

 Tvpe localitv : Moonda river, Gaboon. 



Two spécimens of the Flower-pecker which Mr Lowk shot at 

 Iju seem to be somewhat intermediate between the Cameroon bird 

 (which is apparenthv the same as the typical species) and the bird 



C) Mr Chapin in his classitication of the weaver birds (Bull. .Ain. Mus. Nat. Hist., 

 XXXVIl, 1917) included the genus Pkotidoynis provisionally with the Eslrildiiuic. indicating 

 that he believes the correct position still to be in doubt. 



This Flower-pecker had previously been included in the Dtcaeidac 1 foUow Mr Chapix 

 in the new classification which he proposes as I consider his work inerits very careful 

 attention from his brother ornitholos^ists. 



