SERLNUS. 177 



The genus is spread over the whole of Africa, Southern 

 Europe and Central Asia. It includes about 35 known 

 species, of which 30 occur in the Ethiopian Region only. Of 

 these, none are natives of the Madagascar subregion, although 

 a few have become acclimatised there. They are all good 

 songsters and hardy cage-birds. The genus may be divided 

 into several apparently very natural groups which somewhat 

 overlap each other ; but I fail to see any advantage to be 

 derived by separating S. hertoni from the typical species of 

 RhyncJiostruthus, it is so much more nearly allied to the latter 

 than to the type of Serlnus, and the type of Alario differs only 

 from S. angolensis in the peculiar colouring. 



Type. 

 Serinus, Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. p. 228 (1816) . . . S. serinus. 

 Crithagra, Swains. Zool. Journ. iii. p. 348 (1827) . . S. sulphuratus. 



Alario, Bp. Consp. i. p. 519 (1850) S. alario. 



Ehynchostruthus, Scl. and Hartl. P. Z. S. 1881, p. 170 S. socotranus. 



KEY TO THE SPECIES. 



a. With a considerable amount of yellow on the 

 under surface of the body. 

 a^. Centre of forehead next to the culmen not 

 greenish like the crown, 

 a^. Forehead not entirely uniform bright 

 yellow ; chin never yellow nor clear 

 white, black in adult males. 

 0.3. Males with the entire head and throat 

 jet black ; females with only the front 

 half of the crown dusky; wings 

 blackish with two broad oblique 



yellowish-white bars nigriceps. ) % | 



b^. Head never entirely black, nor with 

 the front half of the crown dusky. 



[May, 1902. 12 



