158 FRINGILLARIA RETDI. 



tame little bird and allows a very close approach as it sits, 

 piping its simple song of ' zizi-zizi-zi ' and opening and shutting 

 its wings, on the top of a rock. It feeds on insects, small 

 beetles, grasshoppers and spiders, as well as on the seeds of 

 various grasses and weeds. The nest, rather deeply cup- 

 shaped, is flimsily constructed of dry grass and rootlets, 

 scantily lined with hair, and is usually placed in a low bush 

 close to the ground, or by the side of a rock. The three or 

 four eggs, laid in September or October in the Colony, are 

 pale greenish white, thickly spotted and blotched with reddish 

 brown and yellow, frequently in a cap over the lai'ger end. 

 They average O'SO X 0-62." 



There is a good series of specimens in the British Museum, 

 those collected in Cape Colony from January to July all have 

 the light parts whitish buff, while those collected in Natal and 

 the Transvaal from February to November have the pale parts 

 sandy yellow, and these latter ones belong, I consider, to a 

 well-marked Eastern form which 1 name F. reidi, after my 

 friend Colonel Savile G. Reid, whose notes on the birds of 

 Natal, published in the Zoologist for 1882, must have interested 

 everyone who has read them. 



Pringillaria reidi, sp. nov. 



Fringillaria vittata (nee Swains.) Ayres, Ibis, 1878, p. 297 Potcliefstroom. 

 Fringillaria capensis (nee Linn.) Butler, Feildeu and Eeid, Zool. 1882, 



p. SQ2 Natal; Ayres, Ibis, 1884, p. 230 Transvaal ; Sharpe, Cat. 



B. M. xii. p. 565 (1888) pt. Bustenburg. 



Adults. Very like F. capensis, but differing in the pale parts of the 

 sides of the head, the throat, centre of breast and the under tail-coverts 

 being darker and of a sandy yellow colour. Iris dark hazel, bill dusky, under 

 mandible paleish towards the gape ; tarsi and feet dusky, soles of feet pale. 

 Total length 6-0 inches, culmen 0-4, wiog 3-0 to 315, tail 2-7, tarsus 0-8. 

 <? , 14. 7. 81 ; 2 , 25. 7. 81. Ingagani K. (Keid). 



A« 



