ZOSTEEOPS CEYLOXENSIS. 



(THE CEYLONESE WHITE-EYE.) 

 (Peculiar to Ceylon.) 



Zosterops annulosus, Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 121 (1852); Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 



1853, xii. p. 267; Legge, J. A. S. (Ceylon Branch) 1870-71, p. 29. 

 Zosterops ceylonensis, Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 459, pi. xx. fig. 2; Swinhoe, Ibis, 1873, 



p. 228 ; Layard, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 205 ; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 22 ; Holdsw. t. c. p. 123 ; 



Legge, Ibis, 1875, p. 410. 

 The Mountain Bush-creeper, Kelaart ; The Hill White-eye, Europeans in Ceylon. 



Supra flavicanti-vii'idis, loris et plumis supra- et infraocularibus saturate cinereis : annulo ophthalinieo albo : tectri- 

 cibus alarum, dorso concoloribus : remigibus et rectricibus uigrieanti-brunneis, dorsi colore roarginatis : gutture 

 toto et prsepectore lsste flavis : corpore reliquo subtiis albido, pectore flavicanti-viridi lavato, lateribus hypochon- 

 driisque delicate cinerascentibus : tibiis, crisso subcaudalibusque lajte flavis : rostro nigricante, ad basin schistaceo : 

 pedibus plumbeis : iride brunnescenti-flava. 



Adult male and female. Length 4 - 5 to 4'7 inches ; wing 2-1 to 2-3 ; tail 1*6 to 1-75 ; tarsus 0*7 ; middle toe and claw 



0'5 to - 55 ; bill to gape 057 to 063. 

 Iris yellowish brown, or reddish brown, or pale brownish yellow (as variable as the last species) ; bill blackish, with the 



base beneath bluish or pale slaty ; legs and feet bluish or pale leaden. 



Above dusky olive-green, somewhat infuscated on the forehead and pale on the rump ; wings and tail brown, edged 

 with the hue of the back ; a close, white, orbital fringe, as in the last species ; lores, just beneath the eye, and from 

 the gape down the side of the throat blaekish ; this gular streak varies in size and intensity ; throat and fore neck 

 pale greenish yellow, shading off into the green of the side neck ; breast and lower parts albescent, shaded with 

 greyish on the sides, and with a wash of yellowish down the centre of the breast ; thighs and under tail-coverts 

 greenish yellow ; under wing-coverts whitish. 



Females have the yellow of the throat greener, as a rule, than males, and appear, as in the common species, to have the 

 eye reddish at times. 



Obs. Although this species has long been known as a Ceylonese bird, it is only lately that it has been discriminated as 

 new to science. Kelaart and Layard assigned to it the specific appellation of annulosus, which in reality was the name 

 given by Swainson to an African species figured in his ' Zoological Illustrations.' The former, in writing of it as 

 a Nuwara-Elliya bird, said (' Prodromus,' p. 102), " We fear that the Nuwara-Elliya Zosterops is wrongly identified : 

 it is of a darker green than the common Zosterops palpebrosus ;" he accordingly styled it, in his catalogue, by the 

 above-mentioned name, which was likewise used by Layard*, who, however, doubted its distinctness from the 

 low-country bird. In 1869 Mr. Holdsworth and myself examined specimens in the Asiatic Society's Museum, 

 which he had presented to that institution, and but little doubt remained iu our minds that it was a good species : 

 in November of the following year I read a note on it at a Meeting of the Ceylon Branch of the Asiatic Society, 

 and had the intention of giving it a name in my paper to be published in the Journal, p. 29 (1S70-71); m the 

 mean time, however, Mr. Holdsworth, who had taken up the subject more fully, informed me that he had worked 

 it out, and was about to call it Zosterops ceylonensis in his paper in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' and 

 I accordingly expunged my description from the Asiatic Society's Journal. It has been maintained by some that 

 there is a Zosterops inhabiting the Nilgkiris, which might be identical with the present species. Mr. Blaniord 

 called attention to this matter in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1S69, p. 170, in which he says that 

 the Nilghiri race is « a little larger and appears to be darker in colour" than Zosterops palpebrosa Mr bwinhoe 

 likewise writes, in ' The Ibis,' 1873, that he had a specimen from Captain Bulger's collection, marked " Madras, 



* Layard writes me to correct a mistake which occurred in his note on this species (P. Z. S. 1S73, p. 20o). The 

 last sentence shoidd read: — " I have not collected in Nuwara Elliya." 



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