SPEIROPS. 201 



Genus II. SPEIROPS. 



This genus is extremely nearly allied to Zosterops, but the bill is rather 

 stouter and the culrnen much curved. Its members may be most readily 

 distinguished by the white on the head not being confined to an eye-ring. 



KEY TO THE SPECIES. 



a. Above brown ; crown black. 



a 1 . A ring round the eye, and a baud above 



the black lores, white. St. Thomas Is. . lugubris. 



b 1 . No white ring round the eye ; forehead, 



cheeks and throat white. Camaroons . . melanocephala. 



b. Above brownish ash with the head and neck 



white leucophcea. 



Speirops lugubris. 



Zosterops lugubris, Hartl. ; Sharpe, Cat. B. M. ix. p. 199 (1884) 

 St. Thomas Is. ; Sousa, Jorn. Lisb. 1888, p. 152 ; Bocage, t. c. 

 p. 231 ; Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 106 (1896). 



Adult Male. Above, olive brown, with the crown black ; wings and tail 

 dark brown, the feathers edged with the same colour as the back ; sides of 

 forehead, lores and a ring round the eye white ; chin white, throat ashy 

 grey ; breast pale olive tinted ashy brown ; under tail-coverts slightly more 

 rufous ; thighs, axillaries, under wing-coverts and narrow inner margins to 

 the quills white. Bill and legs pale brown ; iris pale chestnut. Total length 

 5-2 inches, culmen 0-55, wing 2-9, tail 2"1, tarsus 09. St. Thomas Is. 

 27. 6. 88 (F. Newton). 



The St. Thomas Brown White-eye is confined to the 

 island of that name, which is situated on the Equator in 

 5° E. long., or about 150 miles due west of the mouth of 

 the Gaboon river. 



The species was discovered by Weiss, two of whose speci- 

 mens are in the Hamburg Museum. In the British Museum 



