CINNYRIS VERROXI. 



under tail coverts yellowish-grey, tinged with green, particularly the flanks ; 

 no axillary tufts : the colours of the other parts similar to those of the male. 



Only a very few specimens of this bird have yet been found in South Africa, and none, as 

 far as I know, within the Umits of the Cape Colony. Kafirland, and the country eastward 

 of it, towards Port Natal, furnished the specimens we possess. Like the other species of the 

 group, it feeds upon small insects, and these it collects partly from the branches and leaves of 

 brushwood and dwarf trees, and partly from flowers. 



The birds of the genus Cinnyris have generally been regarded as feeding upon the saccharine 

 juices which exist in flowers, but as far as my experience goes, I should be inclined to consider 

 them as giving a preference to insects. In those I examined, I found the bulk of the contents of 

 the stomach to be insects, though at the same time each contained more or less of a saccharine 

 juice. The acquisition of a certain portion of the latter is not easily to be avoided, con- 

 sidering the manner in which they insert their bills into flowers, but the consumption of insects 

 of a size such as I have found in their stomachs, might easily be obviated, provided these were 

 not agreeable to their palates, and not actually a description of food which they by choice 

 selected. 



In the same country in which we found this bird we discovered another species of the genus, 

 Cinnyris, which appears to us yet undescribed, and which we shall hereafter figure under the 

 name of Cinnyris olivaceus. The colour of this species, above, is intermediate between grass 

 and olive-green, the head being strongly tinged with blue ; below, it is light yellowish-green, 

 with an orange tint on the throat, and on each axilla there is a small tuft of brilliant yellow 

 feathers. Length, from the base of the bill to the point of the tail, five inches ; length of the 

 bill, one inch, three hnes. 



