558 Mr. G. L, Bates on the Breeding -Seasons 



to me, points entirely to an opposite conclusion. The 

 cranium of the Woodcock, when compared with that of the 

 Gannet, for example, has obviously undergone very profound 

 modifications, and these have come about by what may be 

 described as a process of telescoping the basis cranii; thereby 

 the brain-cavity has completely changed its shape, and the 

 aperture of the ear with the rest of the hinder portion of 

 the cranium has been swung downwards and forwards 

 towards the base of the beak, the long axis of which 

 virtually retains its primitive angle. This being so, and the 

 evidence is incontrovertible, it is not the beak which is 

 abnormally situated but the aperture of the ear, as I 

 originally contended. Furthermore, let me repeat once 

 more, the ear of the Woodcock is not ''just under the eye " 

 as in the Snipe, as was contended by a writer in ' The Field ' 

 for Sept. 7, 1907 (vol. 110, p. 479). 



XXVII. — Obsej'vations regarding the Breeding-Seasons of 

 the Birds in Southern Kamerim. By G. L. Bates, 

 C.M.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



(Plate XI.*) 



With reference to our northern birds, we are so accustomed 

 to the facts that they nest and breed at a certain time of 

 the year, moult at another, and migrate (in many cases) at a 

 third, that it is hard to realize a state of things in which 

 there is no such regular observance of seasons among birds. 

 On coming to the tropical forest-country of West Africa 

 the ornithologist expects to find breeding- and moulting- 

 seasons among the birds. The assumption that they have 

 such seems to underlie the published accounts of different 



* This map has been prepared to shew the localities of the places 

 mentioned by Dr. Bowdler Sharpe and myself in this and former papers 

 on the Birds of Southern Kamerim. See ' Ibis,' 1904, pp. 88, 591 ; 1905, 

 pp. 89, 461 ; 1907, p. 416, and 1908, pp. 117, 317. It will be observed 

 that some of the inland places are in the water-basin of the Congo. — 

 G. L. B. 



