ANNALS 
OF 
c The Transvaal Jftuseum. 
VOL. I. 
JANUARY, 1909. 
No. 3. 
DESCRIPTION OF TWO NEW SPECIES OF BIRDS 
IN THE TRANSVAAL MUSEUM. 
By Dr. J. W. B. Gunning, Director 
ANTHREPTES REICHENOWI, sp. nov. 
Description : Male . Above pale olive-green, a little paler on the 
upper tab coverts ; front half of crown, chin, and throat, as far as upper 
breast, bright metallic indigo-blue with violet reflections ; the edges of 
the metallic patch more inclined to steel-blue. Lores and a ring round 
the eye pale yellow, the former shaded with dusky. Wings olive-brown, 
the feathers being edged with olive-green ; paier on the remigf y inner 
margins of the latter pale whitish-grey. 
Tail olive-brown, the feathers edged with olive-yellow. Under surface 
yellow, strongly washed with greyish-olive, particularly on the flanks and 
sides of the chest. Pectoral tufts pale yellow ; axillaries pale yellow ; 
under wing-coverts white tipped with pale yellow, those on carpal bend 
pale yellow. 
Length, 106 mm. ; wing, 55 -5 ; tail, 44 *5 ; tarsus, 15 ; culmen, 15 -5. 
Female: Coloured much like the male, but is without the metallic 
parts, the throat and forehead being pale yellow-grey. The upper surface 
is slightly paler and the lower duskier than the male. 
Length, 100 mm. ; wing, 54 ; tail, 37 : tarsus, 14 -5 ; culmen, 15. 
Male. -Mzimbiti, near Beira, Portuguese South-East Africa, 17th May, 
1908. (P. A. Sheppard.) 
Female. Mzimbiti, near Beira, Portuguese South-East Africa, 6th 
July, 1908. (P. A. Sheppard.) 
It is somewhat difficult to know where to place this bird, as all its 
characters are not in accordance with the definition of the genus Anthreptes ; 
the beak being distinctly curved (even the keel of the lower mandible being 
slightly curved). 
In general appearance the bird comes nearest to the illustration of 
Cinnyris reichenbachii in Shelley’s “ Monograph of the Nectariniidae,” but 
the blue is deeper and only reaches as far as the middle of the crown and 
does not include the ear coverts, which are olive-green. On the under 
surface the grey is not half so pronounced, and the tail is only slightly 
rounded, not graduated. It is also considerably smaller. 
