90 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton on ihe 



Avliich clothe the northern and western slopes of Chirinda ; 

 and Mr. Stanley informs me that he has obtained it at 

 Mafusi. They are usually in pairs, and call to one another 

 with a weak sibilant note. On the 20th of August, in a 

 cleared space on the outskirts of the forest, I watched one of 

 these birds for some time feeding, in company with Tm^siger 

 stellatus and Trochocercus albonotatus, on a particularly fierce 

 and powerful species of ant [Anomma sp.), a column of which 

 were crossing the patch on one of their raiding-expeditions. 

 The birds would fly down and, hurriedly picking up two or 

 three of the skirmishers from the flanks of the column, 

 return to their bases in a neighbouring Solarium hedge or 

 the surrounding high weeds, before the ants had time to 

 attack them. Two specimens in my collection each measured 

 4"6 inches in the flesh, bill and feet black or blackish, base of 

 lower mandible pale brown, irides dark brown. The stomachs 

 contained small diptera and beetles, and ants. 



131. Chloropeta natalensis. Natal Yellow Flycatcher. 

 Hh. On July 29th I shot a female amongst the long 



grass near the summit of Chirinda, about 80 yards from the 

 forest itself and near no other trees. It was perching on the 

 grass-stems, and struck me as behaving much more like a 

 Grass-Warblcr than a Flycatcher. It measured 5*6 inches in 

 the flesh, and the stomach contained small beetles. 



132. Smithounis capensis. Cape Broad-bill. 



Rh., P. During the past year the Cape Broad-bill has 

 proved to be fairly common both in Chirinda and in the 

 wooded kloofs surrounding it, and between it and Spunga- 

 bera. On the Inyamadzi I heard it calling in a spot where 

 the ordinary trees of the open woods were growing more 

 densely than usual. I met with it several times in the small 

 forest-patches of the Chikamboge Valley, and at Maruma I 

 came across it frequently, both in the forest-patch itself and 

 in the denser bush, and even in low scrub to the east of 

 Mr. Dierking's coffee- plantation. Finally, in the lower Jihu 

 it is quite one of the commoner birds of the denser bush. 

 In the low veld it was common both in the Brachystegia 



