286 



by a series of clumsy hops, but ainoug the branches 

 they are remarkably active in spite of their rather 

 ungainly appearance and long awkward-looking bill, 

 though when they first alight on a tree after fliglit the 

 latter seems to almost overbalance them, at any rate 

 they always sway forward as they settle, and apparently 

 onl}'^ just save themselves from a bad fall by a sudden 

 upward jerk of the tail. My bird was taken out of its 

 nest and brought to me when nearly fledged. It 

 accompanied me on my wanderings for quite a long 

 time, loose about the hut with a clipped wing during 

 the day, but shut up in a box during the nights and 

 on the journeys. At first the boys fed it on chewed 

 ground-nuts, but as it grew older it began to eat them 

 without any outside assistance. These ground-nuts 

 (their natural food for at least two months of the year), 

 are always preferred to anything else, but if they were 

 not forihcomiiig it would take boiled rice, soaked 

 biscuit, or the native porridge made of pounded millet. 

 It would also probably have eaten most kinds of fruit, 

 and would I am sure have been the better for some 

 such addition to its diet ; in fact its death was, I think, 

 hastened by intestinal trouble. Unfortunately fruit, 

 except for an occasional orange, a fruit this bird 

 never seemed to understand, is unobtainable in the 

 bush. I also had quite recently an adult of our other 

 common species, the "Kilah-kong" of the Mandin- 

 goes, (^L.nas7ilus), which had been slightly winged by 

 a shot. Although his injury was trifling the bird 

 refused to feed and soon went the way of all flesh. 

 This species is larger than the preceding, is a mottled 

 brown in colour, and has a large brown beak with 

 light yellow markings and blotches on it. 



Soon after my arrival in October last I caught two 

 of the common Bulbuls of Batliurst {^Pyononotus bar- 

 baUis), the Dusky Bulbul of the Zoological Society's 

 list, in which specimens of this bird are noted as 



