ZOSTEEOPS CETLONENSIS. 
(THE CETEONESE WHITE-EYE.) 
(Peculiar to Ceylon.) 
Zosterops annulosus, Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 121 (1852); Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 
1853, xii. p. 267 ; Legge, J. A. S. (Ceylon Branch) 1870-71, p. 29. 
Zosterops ceylonemis, Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 459, pi. xx. fig. 2 ; Swinhoe, Ibis, 1873, 
p. 228 ; Layard, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 205 ; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 22 ; Holdsw. t. c. p. 123 ; 
Legge, Ibis, 1875, p. 410. 
The Mountain Bush-creeper, Kelaart ; The Hill White-eye, Europeans in Ceylon. 
Supra flaYucanti-viridis, loris et plumis supra- et infraocularibus saturate cinereis : annulo oputhaluiico albo : tectri- 
cibus alarum dorso concoloribus : remigibus et rectricibus nigricauti-bruuneis, dorsi colore margiuatis ; gutture 
toto et prscpectore lastc flavis : corpore reliquo subtiis albido, pectoro flavicauti-viridi lavato, lateribiis hypochou- 
driisque delicate cinerasceiitibus : tibiis, crisso subcaudalibiisque Isete flavis : rostro nigricante, ad basin scbistaeeo : 
pedibus plumbeis : iride brumiescenti-flava. 
Adult male aiul female. Length 4‘5 to 4‘7 inches ; wing 2'1 to 2-3 ; tail 1'6 to 1'75 ; tarsus 0-7 ; middle toe and claw 
0-5 to 0-55 ; bill to gape 0-57 to 0-63. 
Iris yellowish brown, or reddish brown, or pale brownish yellow (as variable as the last species) ; bill blackish, with the 
base beneath bluish or pale slaty ; legs and feet bluish or pale leaden. 
Above dusky olive-green, somewhat infuscated on the forehead and pale on the rump ; wings and tail brown, edged 
with the hue of the back; a close, white, orbital fringe, as in the last species ; lores, just beneath the eye, and from 
the gape down the side of the throat blaekish ; this gular streak varies in size and intensity ; throat and fore neck 
pale greenish yellow, shading off into the green of the side neck ; breast and lower parts albescent, shaded with 
greyish on the sides, aud with a wash of yellowish down the centre of the breast ; thighs and under tail-coverts 
greenish yellow ; under wing-coverts whitish. 
Females have the yellow of the throat greener, as a rule, than males, and appear, as in the common species, to have the 
eye reddish at times. 
Ohs. Although this species has long been known as a Ceylonese bird, it is only lately that it has been discriminated as 
new to science. Kelaart and Layard assigned to it the specific appellation of annulosus, which in reality was the name 
given by Swainsoii to an African species figured in his ‘Zoological Illustrations.’ The former, in writing of it as 
a Nuw'ara-Elliya bird, said (‘ Prodromus,’ p. 102), “ We fear that the Nuwara-Elliya Zosterops is wrongly identified ; 
it is of a darker green than the common Zosterops palpehrosus ; ” he accordingly styled it, in his catalogue, by the 
above-mentioned name, which was likewise used by La 3 fard*, who, however, doubted its distinctness from the 
low-country bird. In 1869 Mr. Holdsworth and myself examined specimens in the Asiatic Society’s Museum, 
which he had presented to that institution, and but little doubt remained in our minds that it was a good species ; 
in November of the following year I read a note on it at a Meeting of the Ceylon Branch of the Asiatic bociety, 
and had the intention of giving it a name in my paper to be published in the Journal, p. 29 (1870-71): in the 
moan time, however, Mr. Holdsworth, who had taken up the subject more fully, informed me that he had worked 
it out, and was about to call it Zosterops ceylonensis in his paper in the ‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society, and 
I aecordingl)'' expunged my description from the Asiatic Society’s Journal. It has been maintained by some that 
there is a Zosterops inhabiting the Nilghiris, which might be identical with the present species. Mr. Stanford 
called attention to this matter in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1869, p. 170, in which he says that 
the Nilghiri race is “ a little larger and appears to be darker in colour” than Zosterops palpehrosa. Mr. Swinhoe 
likewise w'rites, in ‘ The Ibis,’ 1873, that he had a specimen from Captain Bulger s collection, marked “ Madras, 
* Layard writes me to correct a mistake which occurred in his note on this species (P. Z. 8. 1873, p. 205). The 
last sentence should read : — “ I have not collected in Nuw'ara Elliya.” 
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