7. CAJIPOPHAGA. 61 



Caiupephaga xaiithornithoides (lapsu), Shnrpe, Ibis, 1870, p. 55. 

 Lanicterus xauthomithoides, Sharpe, Cat. Afr. B. p. 52; Ussher, 



Ibis, 1874, p. 65. 

 Lauicterus, sp. no v., Sal vail. 8,- Antin. Viar/t/. Boyos, p. 76. 



Adult male. General colour above and below glossy steel-black, 

 the quills and tail-feathers black edged with steel-black ; lesser and 

 median wing-coverts bright orange-yellow, forming a large shoulder- 

 patch ; quills sepia-brown below, washed with olive along the inner 

 webs. Total length 7*2 inches, culmen 0-6, wing 3-65, tail- 3-5, 

 tarsus 0'75. 



Younc) male. Above ashy brown, the head, neck, and mantle uni- 

 form ; scapulars yellowish, bari'ed across with black ; lower back, 

 rump, and upper tail-coverts paler and more whity brown than the 

 rest of the back, hero and there tinged with rufous, narrowly barred 

 with glossy greenish black ; wing-coverts dull yellowish, the median 

 and greater series dark brown, edged and tipped with bright yellow ; 

 quiUs brown, margined with yellow ; tail-feathers blackish, tipped 

 with yellow, increasing in extent towards the outennost, the middle 

 feathers olive, browner on the inner web ; lores and eyebrow white ; 

 round the eye a ring of buffy white feathers, and in front of and 

 behind the eye a dusky blackish spot ; ear-coverts pale ashy brown, 

 with whitish shaft-streaks ; throat white, with scarcely any cross- 

 markings ; rest of under surface of body white, somewhat washed 

 with yellow and barred across with blackish lines : under wing- 

 coverts and inner linings of quiUs bright yeUow. 



Obs. The above description is taken from an Accra skin, sent along 

 with an adult male of the present bird ; the female bird is very 

 similar without doubt, but that the present is a male and not a 

 female is proved by the presence of a single bright orange feather 

 among the wing-coverts. It is strange that with a bird by no means 

 rare in collections there shoidd be so much difficulty in finding out 

 the correct female plumage ; but the majority of skins reach us with- 

 out any indication of sex. In his recent book Professor iJocage has 

 endeavoured to solve the question by making tho yellow-shouldered 

 bird (C. xantliornoides) the female of the Black Caterjnllar-catcher 

 of South Africa ( C. nigra). This is scarcely feasible ; for, in the first 

 place, I have the female bird of the latter, sent with the male by 

 Mr. T. C. Atmore, both sexes having been determined by dissection*. 

 Again, if C. xanthornoidfS were tho female of C. nigra, how is it 

 that we do not find the latter in West Africa, ])ut only the former ? 



It has also been put forward that C. xanihoraoides is a stage of 

 C. plucnicca. This seems more probable, as the two birds are 

 almost of the same dimensions, and only differ in the colour of tho 

 shoulder-patch. Governor Ussher thought that the yellow-shouldered 

 bird was the older ; but this I cannot coincide Mith, as we have in 

 the Museiim a specimen commencing to put on the yellow shoulder 

 while still in the mottled or young plumage. That the other species 

 changes direct from a similar plumage to the h\l\ scarlet shoulder 



* Vide infra, p. (53. 



