1845.] or little known Species of Birds. 563 



Zosterops. Linnaeus only wrote it in his Syst. Nat. by a slip of 

 the pen for madagascariensis, as the bird he called Motacilla ma- 

 deraspatana was from Madagascar, and Gmelin properly corrected 

 the name to madagascariensis" The Indian species is the Sylvia 

 annulosa, Var. A, of Swainson's Illustrations, and will now rank as 

 Z. annulosus, (Sw.) It seems peculiar to the hilly parts of the 

 country, from the Himalaya to Ceylon. 



A second described oriental Zosterops, inhabiting Java and the 

 Philippines, and probably the Malay countries generally, is the Di- 

 caumflavum of Horsfield, Lin, Tr. XIII, 170. Dr. Horsfield informs 

 me, that " it is nearly allied to the Indian species, but distinct." 



Z. 7iicobaricus, nobis, is a third common in the Nicobar islands. 

 Length four inches, by six in extent of wings ; closed wing two inches ; 

 tail one and a half ; tarse five-eighths of an inch ; bill to gape nine- 

 sixteenths. Nostrils covered as usual by a soft impending scale ; and 

 the tongue subdivided at tip into a pencil of thin filaments. Upper 

 parts greyish olive-green, greenest on the forehead, wings, and 

 upper tail-coverts : throat and front of neck pale yellowish, the 

 breast and under-parts whitish, except the lower tail-coverts which 

 are light yellow : eyes surrounded, as usual, by silky white feathers ; 

 the lores and beneath the white orbital feathers blackish, the former 

 surmounted by a yellowish line. Bill dusky, the base of the lower man- 

 dible pale ; and the legs albescent-plumbeous. Upon dissection, the 

 muscular coat of the stomach of a bird of this species was found to be 

 considerably more developed than in Nectarinia, and both stomach and 

 intestines contained numerous hard black seeds, about the size of No. 8 

 shot : these had probably been contained in a pulpy berry ; and the 

 fact of their passing the intestines is worthy of notice, as a Thrush fed 

 upon haws invariably ejects the stones by the mouth. 



There are two or more species of this genus in the Isle of France : viz. 

 Z. curvirostris, nobis. A good deal allied to the last in plumage, 

 but having a more slender and distinctly incurved bill, rather longer than 

 usual in the species of Zosterops ; the tongue subdivided at tip into 

 numerous filaments, forming a tolerably large brush. Length about 

 four inches, of wing two inches, and tail one and a quarter ; bill to 

 gape five-eighths, and tarse three-quarters of an inch. Orbital fea- 

 thers conspicuously white as usual. Head and fore-part of the neck 

 dull ashy, tinged slightly with green ; the rump, wings, and tail, 



