58 Mr. C. F. M. Swyunertou on the 



Pycnonotus layardi ; in September last, throughout the 

 scrub-grown glens and along the streams in the neigh- 

 bourhood o£ the township itself, I used to hear its notes 

 from morning to night and frequently saw the birds 

 themselves, in pairs, or very occasionally in threes, moving 

 about amongst the scrub or insect-hunting in the branches 

 of the flat-topped thorns and other trees ; while thus 

 engaged they would often halt to pipe off a string of their 

 mellow notes with bill well open and pointed upwards. In 

 the same month I heard it on the Lusitu and Haroni Rivers, 

 and found it to be common in the forest-patches and wooded 

 ravines of the Chimanimani Mountains. I also heard it in 

 the low veld in December in the rubber-forests of the 

 Madanda. Unlike Ayres in the case of the nearly allied 

 L. rubigmosus, I have found this bird to sing freely all 

 the year round, and during my stay in the Jihu last winter 

 its wonderfully varied notes were constantly to be heard. 

 One of its finest calls, and at the same time one of its 

 commonest, is a loud musical '' Kwheeee ! Kwhee-kwhee- 

 kwhee, Kwhee-kwhee, Kwhee-kvvhee, Kwhee ! " its tail being 

 moved slightly up and dowu with each note as it utters it. 

 Other musical calls which I have not yet described are 

 "Whi-ho, whi-ho, whi-ho, whi-ho, whee!" and a ISightingale- 

 like "few, few, few, few, few, few, few, few!" slightly 

 slower than the '' Kwhee, &c." note. When insect-hunting 

 it sometimes utters a rather harsh rolling note. 



On the 21st of November I found a nest loosely placed 

 8 feet from the ground in some small twigs of an Acacia 

 natalitia in the grass-jungle close to my camp on the Kuru- 

 madzi. Externally it was composed chiefly of the tendrils 

 and stems of Rhoicissus zanzibarensis, the material becoming 

 finer towards the centre of the nest, till finally a thick lining 

 of the fine terminal twigs of the thornless wild asparagus 

 {A. virgatits), mixed with the reddish midribs of a certain 

 pinnate leaf (probably Albizzia), is reached : a shallow 

 nest, the cup being only 1-25 inches deep; total depth 3-4, 

 diameter 5-2 and 3*75 (an oval). It contained one unfledged 

 nestling. Four birds measured in the flesh give an average 



