Birds of So/if/ierii Kumenm. 9 



This Egret was never met with atEf'ulen, and wasohserved 

 only occasionally at the Ja, and then apparently in transit. 

 It was seen only in the months of May and November, flying 

 abont the village or alighting in the street, in the manner ot' 

 the Wading Birds mentioned above. One individual was shot 

 on the roof of a native hut. I think that there must be a 

 migration of these birds, perhaps only a part of them, from 

 the great plains of the Haussa States in Northern Nigeria, 

 where Hartert found them so plentiful, when the drought 

 sets in there in autumn. They must go to some open country 

 to the south, such as the lower Congo or Angola, passing over 

 the foi'est-country between, and returning nortii in May. In 

 passing over this country, so thickly covered with trees, 

 these birds of the open plains are attracted by the bare 

 ground in the villages. 



337. TURTUR SEMITORQUATUS. [Zuui.] 



Stre/jtopelia torquata Sharpe, Ibis, 1907, p. 419. 



Tiie " Znm " has two difierent calls, which are interpreted 

 by the natives as a conversation, in a tone of mutual fault- 

 finding, between a man and his wife. The woman says, " The 

 season is here, and no clearing made yet " (for planting) ; 

 the man says, " And not a pot on cooking.^' These sentences 

 in Buhl, spoken with the proper intonations, resemble two 

 calls — a longer and a shorter one — made by this Dove. But 

 I do not think that they are those of the male and the female, 

 but both, probably, of the male. When I hear one call, 

 apparently aiiswered by another bird at a little distance, 

 the second has the same call as that of the first, and it is 

 not really an answer, but, rather, an imitation by another 

 male, Avhich takes up the tune as it were, while the female 

 is probably close by and silent. In Mr. J. C. McLean's 

 very interesting notes on the birds of New Zealand {' Ibis,' 

 1907, p. 535) he tells about the two different songs of the 

 " Tui" bird in different localities. One song he first heard 

 in the bush towards the end of September, and it was " all 

 the rage" on Oct. If, while in the open country another 

 song was " the fashion." He suggests possible reasons 



