SPERMOSPIZA II^MATINA 1^03 



Adult male. Jet black, with the chin, throat, front and sides of body 

 bright glossy crimson. Iris crimson ; eyelids dull white; bill metaUic blue, 

 changing into crimson at the end ; tarsi and feet brownish black. Total 

 length inches, culmen 0-7, wing 27, tail 2-2, tarsus 0-85. Fantee (Ussher). 



Adult female. Upper parts dark slaty grey ; forehead, sides of head and 

 the upper tail-coverts dull dark crimson ; chin, throat, front and sides of 

 breast glossy crimson ; remainder of the under parts dark slaty grey, and, 

 with the exception of the thigh, the feathers have white bars and terminal 

 twin spots ; these spots apparently gradually develop into bars. Wing 

 2-6. 2 , 5. 3. 72. Connor's Hill (Shelley). 



Immature. Dark slaty grey ; upper tail-coverts and broad edges to the 

 feathers of the throat dull dark crimson. In another young bird the throat 

 is mostly bright crimson, and the feathers of the centre of the chest have 

 rounded white spots. 



The Guinea Blue-billed Weaver ranges from Senegarabia 

 to Abeokuta. 



From Senegal Swainson received a male and female, the 

 types of his Sj)ermophar/a ciianorhynclms. The generic name 

 having been previously used for GoUojJtera by Schonherr in 

 1833, was changed into Spermospha by Gray in 18-iO. Vieillot 

 (Ois. Chant, pis. 67, 68) was the first to name this species and 

 its near ally )S'. guttata, and in his illustrations of these birds 

 he did not. overlook the characteristic colouring of their bills 

 and upper tail-coverts, as has been done by some more recent 

 ornithologists. 



Verreaux received the species from Casamanse, and Brogden 

 met with it at Sierra Leone ; here Mr. Kemp procured speci- 

 mens from March to October at Rotifunk, Jagbamah and Bo, 

 and writes: "It frequents the farms and marshy gi'ound like 

 Pyrpnestes coccineus, is very wary and as difficult to see as that 

 bird, and like that species apparently breed here in August 

 and September." Dr. Biittikofer found its nest in Liberia and 

 remarks that it does not breed in colonies. The nest was 

 placed in the fork of a bush, some four feet from the ground, 

 in the undergrowth of the forest, and was spherical in form, 

 about five inches in diameter, with the entrance near the top. 



