ORNITHOLOGY OF THE COASTS AND ISLANDS 
Among these fifty-nine species, eleven appear marked as new and 
hitherto undescribed. 
The birds collected at St. Thomas, have a peculiar interest, 
from the circumstance, that with the exception of Ploceus grandis, 
prought home and described by Fraser, no other from that place 
has hitherto come to the knowledge of the scientific world. That 
among the twenty-six hitherto known species of this island, nine 
are found which have never been met with in any other locality, 
is at all events a circumstance worthy of remark, although not 
solitary among the fauna of islands. The occurrence, although 
rare, of our Coracias garrula at St. Thomas, where the bird, ac- 
cording to the observation of the collector, was known by nobody, 
is remarkable cnough, for the distribution of this European bird, so 
far as known, does not extend oyer the northern parts of Africa. 
Of the remaining species of this island, named aboye, Muscipela 
atrochalybea bas only as yet been observed at Fernando Po. Nu 
menius pheopus and Gallinula chloropus, are cosmopolites, the 
occurrence of which is not remarkable on an equatorial island. 
Among the four birds collected by Weiss on Prince’s Island, two 
appear to helong to it peculiarly, namely Lamprotornis ignita and 
Dicrurus modestus, if our conjecture be not confirmed, that the 
latter is identical with D. erythrophthalmus, observed by the Duke 
of Wiirtemburg in Sennaar, but not yet described. : 
Weiss collected thirty-one species at Elmina. Only two of these, 
both belonging to the genus Laniarius, appear on closer comparison 
to be new. However, this collection is not without interest in other 
respects, Merops bicolor, Daud., and Muscipeta laticauda, Sw, 
are among the more remarkable species. The former, hithert? 
very rare in collections, is a species of the genus Merops, dis- 
tinguished by its completely anomalous colour, which as yet ha 
only been collected by Perrein in Congo, a very distant locality; the - 
latter is a small typical species of the genus Muscipeta, fount 
numerously in Asia and Africa, which Swainson, supposing it t0 be 
from New Holland, has described and figured as a Myiagra. 
species of Cypselus, collected by Weiss at Elmina and on St. 
Thomas, is found to agree with C. abyssinicus, Hempr. Ehresb. 
lately described by Streubel. 
Under West Africa, as a zoological province, is to be classed 
Senegambia in the most proper, and Guinea, in the widest sensé 0 
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