ON TWO PLOCEINE BIRDS. 161 



Our specimen was said to be from the " east coast of Africa," a fact 

 rendered probable by the arrival along with, it of specimens of Euplectes 

 nigriventris *, a truly eastern species. 



2. P r TELIA WIENEEI. (Plate VII. fig. 2.) 



Pytelia wieneri, Finsch, Gef. Welt, Aug. 9, 1877. 



Pytelia cinereigula, Cab. Orn. Centralb. Dec. 1, 1877, et Journ. fiir 

 Orn. 1878, p. 101. 



In the ' Gefiederte Welt ' (6th Jahrg. no. 32, p. 317) for Aug. 9th, 

 1877, Dr. Finsch described as new, under the above title, a species of 

 Pytelia, of which Mr. A. F. Wiener, F.Z.S., had purchased four living 

 specimens in London, supposed to be from " Australia." On June 18th, 

 1879, Mr. Wiener presented one of these specimens to the Society, which 

 is still (May 31) living in the Parrot-house in good health. From it the 

 accompanying drawing has been taken (Plate VII. fig. 2). 



In the ' Ornithologisches Centralblatt ' for Dec. 1, 1877 (p. 182), 

 Dr. Cabanis described a Pytelia f cinereigula, of which there had been two p. z. S. 1880, 

 specimens lately received at the Berlin Museum from East Africa. One P- 477. 

 of these had been collected at Zanzibar by Dr. Fischer, the second at 

 Mombassa by Drs. Hildebrandt and von Kalkreuth. During my late 

 visit to Berlin I at once recognized in this species Finsch's Pytelia wieneri ; 

 and by the kindness of Drs. Cabanis and Reichenow I was allowed to 

 bring back with me to London a third skin of the same bird, still more 

 lately received, and collected in Angola, at Malange. A comparison of 

 this with our living bird has quite confirmed the opinion I had already 

 arrived at, so that Cabanis's name must yield to Finsch's . The Aus- 

 tralian habitat is, of course, a mistake, Pytelia being an entirely African 

 form. Of the red-beaked section of Pytelia, to which it belongs, P. wie- 

 neri can only be confused with P. melba and its ally (or geographical form) 

 P. citerior. The differences between these and the bird under con- 

 sideration have already been pointed out by Drs. Finsch and Cabanis in 

 their descriptions ; suffice it to say that P. wieneri is at once, inter alia, 

 distinguished from these by its very different markings below, and also by 

 the red of the chin and throat being separated from the greenish-yellow 

 of the lower parts by the interposition of a grey band. In our living bird 

 the beak is bright red and the feet pink ; the irides are dark red. 



* Cassin, J. Ac. Phil. 1849, p. 242, pi. xxxi. fig. 1. Erroneously entered in the 

 register (P. Z. S. 1878, p. 1008) as E. oryx. Cf. List Vert. 1st supplem. 1879, p. 65. 



t This description is reproduced in the Journ. fiir Orn. 1878, p. 101. I may here 

 remark that, in my opinion, Pytelia, though perhaps a " nonsense name," is sufficiently 

 " like Latin " to be retained, and not replaced by " Zonogastris," or altered into " Pytilia" 

 as proposed by Dr. Cabanis (L c. p. 100). 



\ I also found a single specimen of this bird, with no precise locality, in the 

 Museum at Hamburg. 



M 



