PYROMELANA CAPENSIS 
~I 
Ss) 
Pyromelana capensis. 
Loxia capensis, Linn. 8. N. i. p. 306 (1766) Cape of Good Hope. 
Pyromelana capensis, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xiii. p. 236 (1890); Butler, 
Foreign Finches in Captivity, p. 295, pl. 53 (1894); Shelley, B. Afr. 
I. No. 334 (1896) ; Nehrkorn, Kat. Hiers. p. 124 (1899) egg; Harris, 
Essays and Photographs, p. 103, pl. 24, fig. 2 (1901) nest. 
Euplectes capensis, Reichen. Vég. Afr. iii. p. 126 (1904). 
Loxia neevia, Gm. 8. N. i. p. 845 (1788). 
Fringilla phalerata, Licht. Verz. Doubl. p. 22 (1823) Cape. 
Male in breeding plumage. Black, with the lower half of the back and 
the least and median series of wing-coverts bright canary yellow; scapulars 
with broad pale brown edges; greater coverts and quills with very narrow 
brownish buff edges; under surface of quills black, with broad rufous buff 
inner edges ; under wing-coverts rufous buff, shading into yellow along the 
bend of the wing; thighs pale brown or with a few black feathers. Ivis dark 
brown ; bill black, with lower mandible buff; feet pale brown. Total length 
6:2 inches, culmen 0-75, wing 3°4, tail 2°5, tarsus 1:0. 3, 19. 11. 65. Cape 
Town (Andersson). 
Adult female. Upper parts mottled blackish brown, with pale brown 
edges to the feathers: lesser and median wing-coverts and lower half of 
the back with yellow edges to the feathers; under surface of wings as in 
the males. Iris dark brown; bill horny buff; feet pale brown. Wing 3:4, 
tail 2-1. Cape Town. 
Male in winter plumage. Similar to the female in colouring, with the 
exception of the lesser and median wing-coverts and the lower back, which 
are bright yellow. 
The Cape Black and Yellow Bishop-bird is confined to Cape 
Colony. The species is abundant about Cape Town, ranging 
northward to Clan William and eastward into the George 
District; beyond this limited range it is replaced by a smaller 
very similarly coloured species, P. approximans. 
With regard to its habits, Stark writes: “This large 
Bishop-bird is nearly everywhere common in the Western 
Colony, and although it seems to prefer the vicinity of marshy 
‘In the British Museum specimens, only one has the lower mandible nearly 
lack. 
