236 ZOOLOGICAL RESEARCHES 



with great noise and will never come down to the same 

 spot again. 



Iris orange-yellow, bill black, feet reddish brown. 



Lobivanellus albiceps. 



Vanellus albiceps, Gould, P. Z. S. 1834, p. 45. 



Sarciophorus albiceps, Fras. Zool. typ. pi. 64; — Boe. 

 Orn. d'Ang. p. 428. 



Lobivanellus albiceps, Hartl. Orn. W. Afr. p. 214; — 

 Sharpe, Layard's Birds S. Afr. p. 667. 



Hab. West Africa , from Liberia to the Congo ; South 

 East Africa, Zambesi. 



Collected on the St. Paul's River near Sofore Place , and 

 on a sand-bank below Cobolia, on the Marfa River. 



It is very peculiar that these birds keep in small flocks 

 to some well-known spots, either rocky islands or sand- 

 banks in the rivers tolerably far back in the Interior, 

 where the water runs very fast. On the St. Paul's there 

 was only one spot where we ever saw them , and the 

 same was the case with the bank mentioned in the Marfa River. 

 The Natives told me that they stay there for years and 

 are never seen on other similarly situated spots in the same 

 river. They can , though very watchful , be shot tolerably 

 easy as they fly regularly from one end of the bank or 

 island to the other, uttering loud cries. On a trip up the 

 Marfa River I shot, out of about 8 to 12 that inhabited 

 the very long bank, three specimens from my canoe in 

 passing by, without the rest feeling obliged to leave the 

 bank. All three were adult males in full breeding plumage. 

 I fancied that the females were breeding on the same 

 bank , but there was , unfortunately , no time to stop and 

 seek for them. A native war, that broke out shortly after 

 that trip, prevented me from paying another visit to that 

 part of the country. The small colony in the St. Paul's 

 River inhabited a rocky island between two rapids and was 

 inaccessible to us. Some specimens were shot on the wiug, 



Notes trom the Leyden Museum, ^^ol. VII. 



