428 HYPHANTORNIS BOHNDORFFr 



fresb eggs in August when they were at Accra and Abokobi. 

 Ussher procured the species at the Volta River and remarks 

 that these Weavers are very good eating. The species is 

 apparently equally abundant and generally spread over the 

 country eastward to the Niger. On the island of Fernando 

 Po, Mr. Boyd Alexander informs us that it is " vei-y common. 

 Nesting in all the palm-trees round the native huts. Breeds 

 in November." 



In the British Museum there are the following adult males : 

 one of Crossley's from Camaroons and one of Verreaux's from 

 Gaboon ; also two males of H. bohndorffi obtained by Mr. ^. L. 

 ^ , Bates at Efulen in Camaroons. T have not seen a male 



specimen of the true H. cncuUafus from further south than 

 Gaboon, which I therefore take as its boundary in this direc- 

 tion and believe that it is entirely replaced by H. bohndorffi in 

 the Congo and Angola districts, this latter form being so 

 extremely similar that it has not been generally recognised. 



Hyphantornis bohndorffi. 



Ploceus bohndorffi, Eeichen. J. f. O. 1887, pp. 214, 307 Stcmley Falls. 



Hyphantornis bohndorffi, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xiii. p. 455 (1890) ; 

 Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 564 (1896). 



Ploceus abyssinicus bohndorffi, Eeichen. Yog. Afr. iii. p. 58 (1904). 



Hyphantornis cuculiatus (nee Miill.), Sharpe, Ibis, 1902, p. 96 Efulen. 



Adult male. Similar to that of H. cuculiatus , with the same amount of 

 rufous brown on the sides of the neck, but differing in the brown of the 

 neck extending forward on to the hinder crown and margins the entire 

 binder half of the black earcoverts. Iris crimson; bill black; legs pale 

 brown. Total length 6-8 inches, culmen 0'85, wing 3*45, tail 2-1, tarsus I'l. 

 J, 8. 6. 01, Efulen (G. L. Bates). 



Adult female. Similar to that of H. cuculiatus. 



Bohndorff's Black and Yellow-mantled Weaver ranges from 

 Camaroons into the Congo district and Angola. 

 -''/ In Camaroons, at Efulen, Mr. C. L. Bates procured in May 



