ESTRILDA PERREINI 221 
example of it has ever been recorded, and it is not impossible 
for a specimen to have strayed from the mainland to that 
island. 
Perrein’s Lavender Waxbill is apparently a rare local form. 
In Loango, specimens have been collected by Falkenstein at 
Chinchonxo, and at Landana Lucan and Petit obtained 
several examples, of which three are in the British Museum 
and are very constant in their colouring, with the exception 
of the flanks in one of the specimens being mottled with 
crimson. The type was procured by Perrein at the Congo. 
The Mozambique Lavender Waxbill ranges from Inham- 
bane to Lake Tanganyika. The type was obtained by Peters 
at Inhambane on the Mozambique coast, just south of the 
Tropic of Capricorn. It was next procured by General Man- 
ning 15 degrees due north, in the Mambwe country, between 
the Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika, and the only other speci- 
men known to me was found by Sir Alfred Sharpe at the 
Kalongwesi River, which runs into Lake Moero. 
The first specimen from British Central Africa was not in 
sufficiently good condition for me to distinguish it from Natal 
birds. This form differs from H. perveini and EH. incana in the 
red of the lower back and upper tail-coverts being slightly 
duller and darker, and is intermediate between the two in 
the greyish black colouring of the abdomen and under tail- 
coverts. Dr. Reichenow, in his great work “Die Vogel 
Afrikas,” includes this form in 7. incana and gives specific 
rank to both H. thomensis and H. perreint. 
As with, for instance, H. astrild, it is by no means an easy 
matter to treat the closely allied forms in a popular manner, 
they not being all equally constant, nor all equally restricted 
to distinct districts, yet they should not be ignored. The use 
of a third name for their recognition is simple. The orni- 
thologist, having named his collection, may by comparing one 
