402 HYPHANTORNIS INTERMEDIUS 



white, partly washed with yellow, and shading into bright yellow along 

 the edge of the wing. "Iris yellow; bill black; legs slate-colour." 

 Total length 5 inches, culmen 0-6, wing 2-8, tail 1-8, tarsus 0-85. 3' , 

 18. 3. 01, Daira Aila (Pease). 



Adult female. Differs in having no black on the head; forehead, crown 

 and mantle ashy brown, slightly washed with yellow ; eyebrows, sides of 

 head, throat and crop whitish yellow ; remainder of the under parts white, 

 mottled with pale yellow, and shaded with ash on the flanks and thighs. 

 "Iris yellow; bill dusky; legs slate-colour." Wing 2-7. 2, 18. 3. 01, 

 Daira Aila (Pease). 



The lutei^mediate Masked- Weaver ranges southward from 

 Southern Abyssinia, Shoa and Angola into Natal. 



This species is small and so very similar in colouring to 

 Sifagra luteola that it really forms an intermediate link between 

 the genera Sitagra and Hyphantornis. The species has been 

 divided into H. intermedivs, Rtipp., as a northern form, and 

 H. cahdtiisi, Peters, as its representative subspecies from south 

 of the Equator, under the impression that the former has the 

 hinder crown and the crop more shaded with chestnut than 

 in specimens from south of the Equator, but even this slight 

 character, which requires a stretch of imagination to appreciate, 

 does not ajjpear to me to be constant. 



Like all the members of the genus Hyphantornis, they are 

 gregarious throughout the year, breed in colonies and construct 

 oval nests, which are suspended from reeds or boughs of trees. 

 The eggs of this Weaver have been described by Mr. Wood- 

 ward and Fischer as uniform white ; they measure 088 x 0'55. 



The species is represented in the British Museum by full 

 plumaged males from Damaraland, Bamangwato, Matabele, 

 Nyasaland, Pangani, Lamu, Daira Aila, and Shoa. The most 

 northern range known for the species in West Africa is 

 Loanda, where Toulson procured a specimen. It has been 

 recorded from the Quanza River on the authority of Mr. 

 Whiteley; Anchieta found it at Benguela and Quillengues 



