Birds of Southern Kamerun. 17 



657. Melignomon zenkeri. 



No. 2181. S' Bitye, Jan. 19, 1907. Stomach con- 

 taiuing a mass of fine flakes of wax, mixed with tiny black 

 particles. 



695. Gymnobucco bonapartii. [Ovol.] 



Reich. V. A. ii. p. 139. 



Heliobucco honapartei Sharpe, Ibis, 1907, p. 441. 



Several nestlings have been brought to me at different 

 times, caught in their holes in decayed trees. These young 

 birds always have the bill dull yellow at the base, and 

 blackish at the tip — quite different from the uniform horn- 

 colour of the adult. Besides that the feathers of the forehead, 

 that become stiff and yellowish in adults, are soft and dark 

 in the younger birds. 



Nine individuals, taken by my boys from one colony, were 

 shown to me on the 1st of April — five adults and four young 

 of different ages. The boys had stopped up the holes the 

 evening before, when the birds were inside and not alert 

 enough to fly away, and had chopped the dead tree down 

 in the morning. It was in one of the holes of this colony 

 that the young Indicator was caught (see above, p. 16). 

 Besides the birds, they brought a single egg that was found 

 in one of the holes. It measured 22 x 18 mm. 



[An egg of this species is of a perfect oval shape, devoid 

 of gloss and pure white. — O.-G.] 



694. Gymnobucco peli. [Ovol.] 



Sharpe, Ibis, 1907, p. 441 ; Reich. V. A. ii. p. 138. 



I wish to give briefly my reasons for believing that there 

 are really two species, G. peli with nasal tufts, and G. calvus 

 without them, and that the one is not merely the young or 

 immature form of the other. 



Though I found the two forms in the same locality at 

 Efulen, as Dr. Sharpe has noted ('Ibis,' 1904, p. 616), I 

 have found only the one with tufts at the Ja, and there 

 I have found it of all ages. 



Young birds of this species, like those of Heliobucco, have 

 the bill yellowish at the base and blackisii at the tip ; and 



SER. IX. VOL. III. • c 



