76 PYROMELANA XANTHOMELAS 
meets that of P. capensis), from Natal, Zululand, the Orange 
River Colony, and the Transvaal. Mr. W. L. Sclater records 
it from Inhambane, which is the furthest north I can trace 
the species. In habits, as in plumage, it closely resembles 
P. capensis. 
Major Clarke has kindly informed me that he met with 
the species near Ingogo, frequenting only the higher slopes 
of the mountains. 
Pyromelana xanthomelas. 
Euplectes xanthomelas, Riipp. N. Wirb. Vog. p. 94 (1835-40) Abyssinia ; 
Reichen. Vog. Afr. iii. p. 128 (1904). 
Pyromelana xanthomelena, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xiii. p. 239 (1890); 
Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 333 (1896); Grant, Ibis, 1904, p. 257 Shoa. 
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 some broad pale brown edges; greater coverts and quills with very 
narrow brownish buff edges; under surface of quills entirely black or with 
obsolete brownish buff inner edges; under wing-coverts rufous buff, shading 
into yellow along the bend of the wing; thighs with or without a few pale 
brown feathers. Iris brown; bill with the lower mandible greyish horn 
colour, the upper one darker, sometimes entirely black; tarsi and feet 
brown. ‘Total length 5:5 inches, culmen 0°55, wing 3:0, tail 2:0, tarsus 0-9. 
Abyssinia (Rippell). 
Adult female. Above mottled blackish brown, with pale brown edges 
to the feathers ; lesser and median coverts and feathers of the lower back 
with pale edges; under surface of wings as in the males. Iris and legs 
brown; bill pale horn colour, darker and browner on the upper mandible. 
Wing 2:7. @, Ashanghi (Blanford). 
Male in winter plumage. Similar to the female, but differs in having 
the same amount of yellow on the wings and back as in the full plumaged 
males. 
Rippell’s Black and Yellow Bishop-bird ranges from north 
of the Orange River and Limpopo into Angola and Abyssinia. 
In Portuguese West Africa the species has been procured by 
Monteiro, who found it to be common in the Cambambe district 
and known to the natives as the “Saca.”  Anchieta has 
