164 SPERMESTES POENSIS 
From the Gold Coast specimens have been collected by 
Blissett at Elmina, and by Ussher in Fantee and at the Volta 
River. At Abouri, in the Aguapim Mountains, T. E. Buckley 
shot the only specimen we recognised in the garden of the 
missionary station. Mr. Boyd Alexander found it at Prahsu, 
and writes: ‘‘ This species breeds in August, forming a domed 
nest of dry grass, which is placed between the small branches 
of a tree, generally an acacia.” In Togoland it is known to 
the natives as the “ Airo,” according to Mr. Baumann, who 
procured a specimen at Jo. 
The species is represented in the British Museum by the 
following specimens: two adults from Sierra Leone, an adult 
and an immature bird from Cape Palmas, a good series of 
nine from the Gold Coast, two nestlings from Abeokuta, a 
very typical specimen obtained by Capt. M. Ferryman at 
Rabba, on the Niger, and a less typical one from Camaroons, 
referred to in the “ Catalogue”’ under the name of S. punctata. 
In Camaroons, apparently, S. bicolor and 8. poensis not only 
meet, but interbreed; this is the conclusion I arrive at after 
reading Mr. Sjéstedt’s notes on the specimens he refers to 
S. punctata. In the British Museum alone the tiny white 
spots on the quills vary in number from two to four in the 
Sierra Leone birds, from two to six in the Gold Coast sneci- 
mens, and in the single example from Camaroons there are 
twelve of these spots. Otherwise they appear to me to agree 
perfectly. 
Spermestes poensis. 
Amadina poensis, Fraser, P. Z. S. 1842, p. 145 Fernando Po; id. Zool. 
Typ. pl. 50, fig. 1 (1849). 
Spermestes poensis, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xiii. p. 262 (1890); Shelley, 
B. Afr. I. No. 386 (1896); Reichen. Vég. Afr. iii. p. 152 (1904). 
Spermestes stigmatophorus, Reichen. J. f. O. 1892, pp. 46, 133 Bukoba, 
Sesse Isl. ; Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 387 (1896). 
Spermestes poensis stigmatophorus, Reichen. Vég. Afr. iii. p. 153 (1904). 
