The Oologists' /Record, Alarch i, 1921. 5 



except a few bits ot leaf and grass which may have been accidental, 

 and only one small downy feather. Reichenow describes the eggs 

 of Grant's Francolin as finely freckled. These were uniform drab 

 colour : otherwise the locaHtv indicates the present species. 



Colitis macroiirus {L.). I was delighted to find on 27th July 

 my first nest of the Blue-naped Coly, and to identify the bird on 

 it. The three eggs were fairly heavily spotted with markings varying 

 from black, in what was probably the first laid egg, through deep 

 brown to light urriber in the last. The nest was five feet from the 

 ground in a thorny bush, rather an isolated one. It was a flattish 

 cup. 



Colitis leucotis affinis, Shell., the White-cheeked Coly, was very 

 common indeed. One nest had as many as six eggs in various stages, 

 but four is the normal clutch. The nest is of stout grass and 

 twigs and lined with finer grass ; it is in the form of a flattish cup or 

 deep saucer and is generally fairly well hidden in leafy boughs at 

 a height of five to ten feet. The eggs are always pure wliite, and for 

 some reason much cleaner than Uganda eggs of the same bird. I 

 think that in Uganda they add green leaves to the nest after laying 

 and these get broken up by the bird's feet and stain the eggs. 

 Reichenow quotes Bohm, usually a fine observer, as saying the eggs 

 are streaked with black : he must have confused this species with 

 C. macrotirus. 



Apus affinis [Or. Hardw.), the Indian Swift, clusters its untidy 

 nests in niches of old Mombasa Fort and under the eaves of every 

 second building in the city ; but they lay about May, and I got no 

 eggs of either this or what I took to be Aptis horus {Hartl. Finsch), a 

 squarer-tailed swift which nests singly in the Ras Mwaka cliffs, 

 usually well out of reach. 



Bradornis pallidas murintis, Finsch Hartl., the pallid Fly- 

 catcher, was another " find " for me. I took two sets, 3 and 2, 

 28th August and 9th September. In the latter case the bird was 

 not on when I approached the small thorn-bush in which, at five feet, 

 was situated the loosely built flattish nest of dead tendrils lined with 

 fine dead grass. After I had waited half an hour she returned. The 

 nest was more exposed than that of almost any other species I 

 found. The eggs reminded me strongly of those of the Australian 

 Scarlet Robin, Petrceca leggii, Sharpe, reddish spots all over a green 

 ground. Emin Pasha's description of the nest and eggs quoted in 



A 2 



