106 Mr. T. Ayres on the Ornithology of Transvaal. 
HYPHANTORNIS VITELLINUS (Licht.). Lichtenstein’s Weaver 
bird. 
Male in winter dress. JIvides dingy tawny yellow; bill 
bluish pale ; tarsi and feet light ash. 
[I have recently compared this specimen with one from the 
Zambesi* in the British Museum, which was identified by 
the late Mr. G. R. Gray as H. vitellinus; and they appeared 
to be the same. 
The present specimen is also identical with that which I 
referred (in ‘The Ibis’ for 1871, p. 254) to the Damara 
Weaver bird (H. velatus, of Vieillot)+; but on re-examining 
a Damara specimen in my collection, I am disposed to think 
that the latter, though very like the two Transvaal examples, 
is not absolutely identical with them, as it has the wing a 
trifle longer, the under mandible stouter, and the nostrils 
almost hidden by the frontal plumage, instead of being un- 
covered as in the two Transvaal specimens. The latter also 
much resemble the smaller specimens of H. mariquensis ; but 
they have the wing shorter, the bill more elongated in pro- 
portion to its depth, and the foot smaller, especially as regards 
the length of the middle toe.—J. H. G.] 
Vipvua principatis (Linn.). Dominican Widow bird. 
Common about Rustenburg in small flights in winter plu- 
mage. 
[Mr. Ayres sends a specimen shot 25th February in Pot- 
chefstroom, which appears by comparison with others at the 
British Museum to be an example of this species in its first 
plumaget, with the striations on the upper parts, showing 
but slightly, in two shades of brown. Mr. Ayres states that 
in this stage it is very scarce: and he did not refer the spe- 
cimen seut to this species; he says that it had the “‘irides 
dusky, bill dusky, with the gonys pale, the tarsi and feet 
dusky horn ; it was a solitary bird, feeding on small grass- 
* The Zambesi country is quoted as a locality of H. vitellinus by 
Finsch and Hartlaub, Vogel Ost-Afrika’s, p. 596. 
+ Conf. Andersson’s ‘ Birds of Damaraland,’ p. 169. 
{ A specimen in similar plumage was erroneously described under the 
name of Estrelda carmelita, vide ‘The Ibis,’ 1868, p. 46, and 1878, p. 259. 
