Birds of Prince'' s Island. 607 



St. Thomas^, but has not yet extended its range to Aniiobon. 

 In Fernando Po its place is taken by Spermestes poensis. 



7. Estrilda astrild sousae. 



Estrilda astrild (lAxm.) ; Salvador!, Orn. Golfo d. Guinea, 

 i. 1903, p. 7; Bocage, Jorn. Sci. Lisboa, 1903, p. 50. 



Estrilda astrild soustE Reichenow, Vog. Afr. iii. 190J<, 

 p. 182. 



Estrilda occidentalis sousce Shelley, Birds of Africa, iv. 

 1905, p. 200. 



Dr. Reichenow has described the Waxbill from St. Thomas' 

 Island as a geographical race, and to this form doubtless 

 belong the birds which have been obtained on Prince's 

 Island. Reichenow characterises this subspecies as follows : 

 " Similar to E. a. minor with clear white cheeks, but the 

 ground-colour of the upperside somewhat greyer and 

 paler." 



Unfortunately, Alexander did not succeed in obtaining 

 any specimens of this Waxbill on Prince's Island, and the 

 single example which he procured on St. Thomas^ is in- 

 sufficient to determine whether a race founded on such 

 slight characters is worth keeping up. 



Captain Shelley entered E. a. sousa as a subspecies of 

 E. occidentalis; while Boyd Alexander, in his excellent 

 paper on the '^^ Birds of Fernando Po " (Ibis, 1903, p. 353), 

 stated that he was unable to find any constant characters 

 to separate E. minor from E. occidentalis. 



When Dr. Reichenow described the present subspecies, 

 it would have simplified matters if he had compared E. a. 

 sousce with E. a. astrild — the typical species — instead of 

 with the east African subspecies E. a. minor. In any 

 case, the differences which exist between E. a. sousce and 

 E. a. occidentalis, the resident form from the island of 

 Fernando Po and the neighbouring coast of i^frica, should 

 have been clearly explained. Lack of material from 

 St. Thomas^ and Princess Islands prevents my doing so 

 in the present paper. 



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