9/9 MR. H. SEEBOHM ON SYLVIA BLANFORDI. [Dec. 3, 



Zool. of Abyss, p. 379) a single specimen of Sylvia melanocephala, 

 Gm., shot at Rairo in Habab. We learn from the personal narrative 

 that 'Blanford was at Rairo between the 10th and loth of August 

 The skin, doubtless obtained between these two dates, is in the 

 British Museum, and appears to me to belong to a hitherto unde- 

 scribed species, which I propose to call 



SYLVIA BLANFORDI. 



The general colour of the upper parts is brown, the innermost 

 secondaries, the quills, and the wing-coverts being narrowly 

 margined with brownish white. The cheeks, head, and nape are 

 brownish black. The tail is very dark brown, the outside tail- 

 feathers (which are much abraded) showing traces of having been 

 tipped with white. The general colour of the underparts is white, 

 shading into brown on the sides of the breast, flanks, axillaries, and 

 under tail-coverts. The bastard primary projects *3 inch beyond the 

 primary-coverts ; and the second primary is between the eighth and 

 ninth in length. The bird is moulting some of the primaries 

 between the third and the eighth. Both mandibles of the bill are 

 dark, and the tarsus and feet are dark slate-grey. The wing 

 measures 2'52, and the tail 2'62. The culmen, which is slightly 

 injured, measures about '5 1 when perfect. 



The only species with which this bird can be confounded are S. 

 curruca (Linn.), S. melanocephala, Gm., and S. rubescens, Blanf. 

 From S. curruca it is easily distinguished by its head being brownish 

 black instead of pale slate-grey, and by its tail being longer instead 

 of shorter, than its wing. From S. melanocephala it may be dis- 

 tinguished by the length of wing being 2'52, instead of varying from 

 2-15 to 2-35, and the colour of the tarsus and feet being dark slate- 

 grey instead of brown. Besides being a larger bird with darker feet, 

 it has a larger bastard primary, a shorter second primary, and has 

 less white on the outside tail-feathers. From S. rubescens it may be 

 distinguished by its tail being longer, instead of shorter, than the 

 wing, by its feet being dark slate-grey instead of palish brown, 

 and by its larger size, the less amount of white on the outside 

 feathers of its tail, its longer bastard primary, and more rounded 

 wing. 



Sylvia blanfordi appears to be quite distinct from any of the birds 

 described by Riippell in his ' Neue, Wirbelth. Abyss.', or by Heuglin 

 in his 'Orn. Nordost-Afrika's/and also from the types of Hemprich 

 and Ehrenberg, in the Berlin Museum, described by Dresser and 

 Blanford in the Ibis (1874, p. 335). 



Another error of identification in Blanford's 'Abyssinia* will be 

 found on page 358. The skin from Senape in the British Museum, 

 labelled Ruticilla phcenicura, Linn., does not belong to that bird, but 

 to the nearly allied species Euticilla mesoleuca, Ehr. I have also exa- 

 mined the Pratincoles from the Abyssinian collection in the British 

 Museum ; and Mr. Sharpe has pointed out to me that Pratincola 

 semitorquata, Heugl., is undoubtedly the breeding-plumage of 

 P. albofasciata, Riipp., and that Blanford's skins labelled Pratincola 

 [2] 



