22 i Letters, Extracts, and Notes, 



The Birds of Gambia. — In 1901 we published in this 

 Journal an excellent article on the Birds of the Gambia 

 Colony drawn up by the late John S, Budgett (' Ibis/ 1901, 

 p. 481). Since then little ornithological news from the 

 Gambia has reached us. But we are pleased to see that in 

 < Bird-Notes/ the Journal of the " Foreign Bird-Club/' 

 edited by Mr. Wesley L. Page, Dr. E. Hopkinson, D.S.O., 

 has commenced a series of papers on the " Birds of Gambia," 

 with which he seems to have a good acquaintance from 

 personal observation (see 'Bird-Notes/ vol. viii. nos. 1-9). 

 Dr. Hopkinson begins with the Weavers, Finches, and 

 Starlings, and then goes on to other Passerine groups, giving 

 many interesting field-notes. Of the Great Black Ox-bird 

 of Senegal {Te.rtor ulbirustris) he writes : — 



"Their nests arc very striking; large masses of twigs occu- 

 pied by several families, whose eggs are laid at the bottom of 

 tunnels driven into the mass of twigs which form the nest. 

 Whenever I have seen their nests they have been in large 

 trees growing in certain villages, never outside in the bush. 

 Sometimes in the upper part of a large cotton-tree are found 

 Marabout Storks nesting, while lower down are the dwellings 

 of the Ox-birds; the latter, although belonging to com- 

 paratively small birds, being larger and stronger than those 

 of the great Storks above them. 



"The hen of the Ox-bird is exactly like the cock, but the 

 colour of the young is a rusty brown." — Edd. 



