12 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I3I 



to his mate. She took them at her bill tip in rapid succession. The 

 male then remained quietly by for some time while she continued 

 working inside. Twenty minutes later the male again flew to the for- 

 est clearing, alighting in a patch of maize. I crept up to within 30 feet 

 and found him perched on a stump several feet above the ground. 



Fig. 2. — Nest i, Mpanga Forest, never completed. 



He was bending over repeatedly, and I could see that he was picking 

 up lumps of earth and swallowing them. To my surprise the female 

 flew over. Both birds now perched together at the forest edge while 

 he coughed up and transferred 5 or 6 pellets to the bill of his mate. 

 Then he hopped away a few feet, broke off a 2-inch piece of bark, and 

 bounced back to offer it to her. She refused it. When the pair had 

 flown into the forest with loud squawking, I examined the stump. 

 A termite nest clung to the side of it. Freshly opened tunnels, now 



