IN WESTERN LIBEKIA. 175 



Hab. The whole of tropical Africa. 



Collected in the grassy plains along the Grand Cape 

 Mount- and Marfa River. 



This bird is very common in the plains along the Grand 

 Cape Mount River after this latter has left the Fisherman 

 Lake. These plains seem to be one of those limited places 

 where the bird is living in great number. Another such 

 place is the plain on the right bank of the Marfa River 

 near its mouth. On other plains, farther in the Interior, 

 and on those between the Fisherman Lake and the Little 

 Cape Mount River , offering quite the same conditions , I 

 never saw it. This peculiar bird calls the attention by 

 sitting on the top of Anona senegalensis , a small tree 

 which is very characteristic for the plains, and singing 

 its short and not unmelodious notes. Now and then it 

 flies off aud hovers for a moment at some height above 

 the ground , before it comes down and hides itself, like 

 our sky-lark , in the grass. 



Iris brown, bill bluish gray, feet flesh-color. 



Pitta angolensis, 



Pitta angolevsis, Yieill. N". Diet. d'Hist. Nat. IV. p. 356; 

 — Hartl. Orn W. Afr. p. 74; — Boc. Orn. d'Ang. p. 

 240; — Elliot, Monogr. Pittidae , pi. 4. 



Hab, West Africa, from Sierra Leone to Angola. 



Four specimens , collected at Bavia (St. Paul) and Grand 

 Cape Mount, 



This beautiful bird is but occasionally met with and 

 seems to be very rare although it is spread over the whole 

 country and can be found close to the coast as well as 

 in the hilly region of the Interior. It inhabits brush- 

 wood, where it keeps to the ground, only now and then 

 jumping upon a twig, which occasionally stops its way. 

 I had but once the chance to observe it for a while when 

 laying in a thicket to wait for wild hogs, but heard no 

 sound of it. The other three specimens were caught in snares. 



Notes from th.e Leyden ]Museum, "Vol. VII. 



