Birds of Southern Kamerun. 61 



descending scale, repeated, in a fine, sweet voice, -with great 

 rapidity, over and over again, for almost as long as a man 

 ■will stand and listen, "oithont a pause for breath. It is a 

 performance that arrests the attention. It seems to have 

 impressed the mind of the African Thrush also, for these 

 notes have been heard to mingle in the Thrush's sons:. 



1833 «. AXTHOTHREPTES HVPODILA. [Zesol.] 



Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 340. 



1835. AxTHOTHREPTES TEPHROL.EMA. [ZcSol.] 



Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 310. 



These two species are easy enough to distinguish from 

 each otlier when in the hand — the males at least. Yet in mv 

 notes they are not always distinguished, and so I speak of 

 them together. Both are found in every place where I have 

 collected long. They live among the bushes and smaller 

 trees of the open cleared land, not in the forest. Their food 

 is more varied than that of most Suubirds. They often eat 

 small fruits; and a certain kind of hard seed as lari^e as a 

 small pea is sometimes swallowed Avhole, almost filliu"- 

 the little stomach. Amono- the insects most frequently 

 found in stomachs are small moth-larvse and spiders. In 

 the stomach of one bird {A. hypodila) were four or five 

 minute snail-shells. 



Besides many nests of small Sunbirds found and not 

 identified was one which, from the well-grown nestling in 

 it, was seen to belong to one of these two species. It was 

 hanging from a slender bough, and was composed of fine 

 fibres ; it was decorated outside with whitish bits of drv 

 leaves and lichen, and abundantly lined with very soft white 

 plant-down. 



1840. Chalcomitra obscura. [Zesol.] 



Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 338. 



This is probably the most common species of Sunbird here 

 considering that it is found not only in the bushes about 

 villages where most of the Sunbirds are common, but also 

 in the forest. Its little song has been already described 



