Birds of Celebes; Zosteropidae. 
493 
These species are grouped together ou the lines of Dr. Sharpe’s careful 
key to the genus, in virtue of their having yellow on the forehead and no yellow 
stripe on the abdomen, but some species possessing both these characters are 
undoubtedly as nearly related to some of the above species, as they are to one 
another. 
Z. citrinella, which we have not been able to examine, is said by Mr. Hartert 
(5) to be the nearest ally of Z. sarasinomm: “They are very similar to each other, 
in fact so much that they might be merely subspecies. Z. citrinella, however, 
is a little larger, with longer wings and beak, and has the sides of the breast 
and abdomen more strongly washed with greyish brown, and the middle of the 
breast and abdomen is lighter and more washed with pale yellow in Zosterops 
sarasinonm” . 
The distinguishing characters of Z. palpehrosa have been pointed out, antea. 
Z. neglecta, which from its geographical location might have been expected to 
show close correspondence with sarasinorum is said by Seebohm to be greener 
than the Indian bird, whereas Z. sarasinorum appears yellower when compared 
with two specimens (though apparently not in fully adult male dress) of Zosterops 
palpehrosa in the Dresden Museum. Still a comparison of Z. neglecta with sarasinorum 
would by very desirable, since neglecta is also a mountain species, having come 
from an altitude of 5000 feet in East Java (Seebohm 1. c.). 
Z. anjuanensis has the under surface more drab-tinted and the yellow of the 
throat of a slightly duller tint (C 10229); Z.demeryi has the under surface ashy f^‘ a c • c u 
grey strongly tinged with yellow (Biittik.). The differences between Zosterops 
sarasinorum and simplex, poliogaster and ahyssinica seem from the descriptions to 
be greater. 
The two other Celebesian Zosterops, Z. atrifrons and intermedia, are readily 
distinguishable from sarasinorum, the first by its black forehead, the second by 
its entirely yellow under surface; Z. anomala by its black and bare orbital ring. 
Zosterops is a genus consisting of a few well-marked types, which appear 
to have been scattered and re-scattered by flight; and now, wherever one of these 
types is found in a new locality, it is named as a new species. A new 
monograj)h of the genus is already much needed. Dr. Hartlaub’s “Versuch” is 
now 30 years old, Dr. Sharpe furnishes a sequence of descriptions of 85 species 
with a key, and, as already mentioned, this number has now been raised to 
over 125. Yet it is impossible to discriminate these “species” by means of de- 
scriptions alone; moreover next to nothing is known about the modifications of 
their different coloms with age, and these appear to be much greater than many 
of the “species”-modifications, nor has any one, so far as we are aware, pointed 
out between what limits of coloration and structure adult individuals from the 
same locality are apt to vary — limits that may prove wide enough in very 
many cases to overlap the variation-limits of the nearest ally in another quarter, 
reducing Zosterops perhaps to some 12 — 20 clearly defined species, some of them 
composed of a large series of ill-defined races. 
