1855.] "Report on a Zoological collection from the Somali country. 291 



'Report on a Zoological collection from the Somali country.. — By 

 E. Blyth. 



The collection on which I have now the honor to report was made 

 by Lt. Speke, of the 46fch B. N. I., and was forwarded to the 

 Society's Museum by Lt. Burton of the Bombay Service, in com- 

 mand of an expedition into the Somali territory, or African region 

 bordering on the Hed Sea.* 



This collection comprises 10 species of mammalia, 36 of birds, 3 

 of reptiles, 1 fish, a scorpion, and- 3 species of Goleoptera. The 

 whole of the Vertebrata (if not the rest also) being distinct 

 species from any found in this country ; save only a Lynx (Felis 

 caracal), and a Wheatear (Saxicola melanura, Temminck), which 

 latter is figured among the Burnes' drawings from Sindh, though we 

 did not previously possess an example of the species. 



The actual novelties are not many ; but comprise a highly inter- 

 esting rodent, in a new generic form affined to the hitherto isolated 

 African genus Ctenodactylus, Gray ; and among the birds, a 

 second species of the Sturnidous genus Spreo, a handsome unde- 

 scribed true Sparrow, and a small Floriken remarkable for the 

 shortness of its tarsi. There is also a Sturnidous bird, which is 

 probably the Lamprotornts morio apud Ruppell ; but is quite 

 distinct from the species so denominated of S. Africa, from which 

 it is now probably first distinguished^ A Bay a (or * Weaver-bird') 

 sent would seem to be the long lost Baglefecht of Bufibn, which the 

 older systematists confounded with our Indian Ploceus philippi- 

 kus, and in Griffith's edition of Cuvier's ' Animal Kingdom' is placed 

 as a synonyme of Euplectes abysstficus : and a beautiful small 

 Honey sucker (Nectarihta albiventris, Strickland, described from 

 the Somali country,) is now probably only for the second time re- 

 ceived in any collection. The reptiles comprise an apparently new 

 ♦Scinque. 



* Vide p. 245, ante. 



t Since the above was written, we find (from a recent No. of the Comptes Ren- 

 dus) that this Abyssinian bird has lately been discriminated by M. Verreaux, who 

 terms it Amydrus Ruffelli. 



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