PASSER HISPANIOLENSIS. 235 



Mr. Lort Phillips writes : " This beautiful little Sparrow 

 represents in Berbera our common bird at home. Its habits 

 and note are almost identical with those of the latter. In 

 January they were very busy nest-building, carrying long 

 streamers of grass, &c., to holes in the wall under the 

 verandah-roof." Mr. Pease only met with the species on the 

 coast at Zaila, and in the British Museum there are two 

 specimens from the same town procured by Captain C. G. 

 Nurse. 



Passer hispaniolensis. 



Pringilla hispaniolensis, Temm. Man. Orn. p. 353 (1820). 



Passer hispaniolensis, Belle, J. f. 0. 1856, p. 31 Cape Verde Is. ; Sharpe, 

 Cat. B. M. xii. p. 317 (1888) Cape Verde Is. Nubia; Shelley, 

 B. Afr. I. No. 260 (1896). 



Fringilla salicicola, Vieill. Faune France, p. 417 (1828). 



Passer salicicola, Alexander, Ibis, 1898, pp. 83, 92, lOi, 115, 280 Cape 

 Verde Is. 



Pyrgita salicaria, Bp. Consp. List, B. Eur. and N. Amer. p. 30 (1838). 



Passer salicarius, Dohrn, J. f. O. 1871, p. 6 Cape Verde Is. 



Adult male. Forehead, crown, and back of neck uniform deep chestnut, 

 many of the feathers generally have partial buff edges ; an incomplete 

 narrow white eyebrow ; mantle and middle-back black with broad buff edges 

 to the feathers, remainder of upper parts as in P. domcsticus ; entire ear- 

 coverts and sides of neck white, chin, throat, and crop black ; breast and 

 under tail-coverts buffy white with large angular black centres to the feathers 

 of the fore-chest and sides of body. Iris brown ; bill brown ; legs pale 

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

 S' , 31. 1. 68. Egypt (Shelley). 



Adult female. Like the female of P. domesticus. 



The Spanish Sparrow inhabits the Cape Verde Islands and 

 Abyssinia to as far south as the Blue Nile, and ranges from 

 the Canary Islands tlii-ough Southern Europe and North 

 Africa into India. 



It is common and generally distributed over the Cape 

 Verde Islands. Capt. Alexander, during his visit to Santiago, 

 found the species frequenting the valleys, and most abundant 



