Mr. Hume has most kindly forwarded to me, for description, this specimen. From the 

 structure of the under tail-coverts it is evident that the specimen is immature, which at once 

 accounts for the somewhat brighter colouring of the plumage, and possibly also, to some extent, 

 explains its small size. The very peculiar form of the bill is, in my opinion, entirely due to 

 malformation, caused apparently by an injury to that part just beyond the nostrils, which must 

 have happened when the bird was quite young. To advance this theory for such a very striking 

 peculiarity might appear hasty, had I not before me a specimen of Cinnyris cruentcdus from 

 Abyssinia with a precisely similar malformation of the bill : this specimen was formerly in 

 Mr. Sharpe's collection, and is now in the British Museum. 



Owing to the hybrid construction of the name given to this species by Eyton, Count Salvadori 

 has proposed for it that of eytonii ; but I cannot see any advantage to be derived from discarding 

 the original and generally adopted title, even if it is less classically correct. 



My description of the adult male is taken from a specimen collected by Mr. Davison at 

 Johore, and now in Mr. Hume's cabinet; and the entire length and the colouring of the soft 

 parts are from the label attached to that specimen. The lower figure in the illustration 

 represents a specimen from Malacca, in my own collection, and the upper figure the type of 

 Mr. Hume's A. simillima. 



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