Bi7'ds of Gazaland. 41 5 



Hills in November^ usually in pairs, chasing one another 

 about, and uttering their loud piping notes, some of 

 which may be rendered as " Tyo-whi-whi-whiri ! '' "Tyo- 

 whi-tyo ! tyo-whi-tyo," " Tyo-whi, tyo-whi/' &c. I also 

 frequently came across them perched on the top of a 

 tree, with crest brought forward, uttering a loud harsh 

 " gweh-gweh-gweh " (almost reminding me of a frightened 

 Blackbird) or an equally harsh '' tsherr ! tsherr ! '"' They are 

 easily distinguished at a distance from birds of the same 

 coloration by their Touraco-like habit of repeatedly flirting 

 up their tail, in which they indulge when settling in a tree 

 or calling. In the lowlands I met with them between 

 Chimbuya and the TImtefu, between Chibabava and 

 Muchukwana, and at Bimba. In my specimens the irides 

 have been brown and the bare skin round the eyes pale grey. 

 Length in the flesh from 13 to 14*2 inches. The stomachs 

 examined contained beetles and numbers of large hairy 

 caterpillars. Odendaal has recently sent me a young male 

 with deep grey breast, obtained near Chirinda on Jan. 1st. 



203. CoccYSTES CAFER. Lcvaillaut^s Cuckoo. 



Rh. Stanley obtained a specimen of this Cuckoo, a female, 

 near Mafusi on April 13th, 1906. It is now in the British 

 Museum. 



204. Centropus burchellt. BurchelFs Coucal. 

 Chindao : " Igudu-gudu ^' (in imitation of the bird^s loud 



repeated call). Singuni : "Umfuku." 



Rh., P. A typical nest of this bird, found on September 

 30th, 1906, near Chirinda, may be worth describing in 

 detail. It was placed in the centre of a dense thicket of 

 Bauhinia galpini eight feet from the ground and was almost 

 impossible to be got at except with the aid of an axe. It 

 was quite a haystack of a nest, 20 inches deep by 12 wide, 

 constructed of a mass of dry grass, twined very loosely 

 together into a flimsy shell, with a large opening in the 

 middle of one side. The cup was lined with a few leaves of 

 Bridelia, Brachystegia, and Bauhinia, which just served to 

 prevent the eggs, four in number and pure white, from 



