128 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 2 23 



trees and bushes, a moister habitat than where I found it, but he does 

 not say if it stayed and fed in these areas or was merely seen there on 

 its way elsewhere. 



Breeding Season 



The following are the pertinent data on the breeding season and 

 range of the shafttail: 



Southern Rhodesia: Matopos Research Station, February 16, egg. Queen's 

 Mines, Bulawayo District, March 14, egg. 



Transvaal: Moordrlft, January 1, egg. Warmbath, January 18, 25, February 

 7, eggs. Andalusia (near Kimberley), April 12, egg. Bloemhof, April 22, egg. 



South-West Africa: Okahandja, March 6 and April 27, eggs. Between 

 Etoscha Pan and Ondonga, May 26, eggs. 



In other words, eggs, whose identification is not completely certain 

 in all cases but seems reasonably reliable, and young have been taken 

 from January 1 to May 26 from the middle to the latter part of the 

 southern summer. Similar records are true of the pintail from 

 southern Africa; it too is a fairly late breeder. The breeding season 

 appears to begin somewhat earlier in the Transvaal, Bechuanaland, 

 and Southern Rhodesia than in South-West Africa, and apparently 

 depends on the start of the rainy season. 



The breeding range is the same as the total range, since the shafttail 

 is not considered to be migratory in most areas of occurrence, but 

 Hoescli and Niethammer (1940, pp. 361-363) inferred that in Damara- 

 land the majority of the local population of this species do not remain 

 to breed. That there may be some seasonal movements in Southern 

 Rhodesia is also indicated by Mouritz (1915, p. 556), who observed 

 little flocks of shafttails around his home for only a few weeks in 

 February and March. 



Songs and Calls 



In 1924 in the Transvaal, I noted that the ordinary call note of 

 the shafttail was like that of the pintail, but more abrupt and slightly 

 sharper. Otherwise there is little difference in the vocalisms of the 

 shafttail and the better-known pintail. The song of the shafttail 

 seemed to me at the time a little softer and less distinctly broken 

 into syllables. The only published statement about the song is not 

 very informative. Townsend (in W. T. Page, 1907, pp. 5-7) noted 

 that among aviary birds, the male was "very lavish in the morning 

 with his little if not lovely song." 



Courtship and Mating 



At Moorddrift, Transvaal, in the first half of December, I wit- 

 nessed the courtship performance of a male shafttail. He was hover- 

 ing in a somewhat jerky flight a little distance above the female (at 



