92 The Oologists' Record, December i, 192 1. 



I arrived at the end of September at Zomba, and spent there 

 the ensuing five months. Early in March this year I moved to 

 Blantyre, where I still am stationed. 



British Nyasaland has an area of rather mider 40,000 square 

 miles, and consists of a northern part, which is a long narrow strip 

 lying between Northern Rhodesia and Lake Nyasa, and a broader 

 southern part, which may be described as a rough oblong of country 

 south of the Lake. This southern area is bounded on its remaining 

 three sides by Portuguese territor5^ European settlement centres 

 in the southern portion, where are situated the townships of Blantyre 

 and Zomba. 



I find it by no means easy to describe in a few words the general 

 configuration of the country, on which so much that concerns birds 

 must depend. Lake Nyasa is at 1,600 feet, and the northern part 

 of the Protectorate consists of a high watershed (up to 8,000 feet), 

 which slopes more or less gradually to the Lake. These hills in their 

 southern continuation form, as the Kirk Range, the international 

 boundary. A reference to the map will show that the Shire River 

 flows out of the southern end of Lake Nyasa southwards into the 

 Zambesi, dividing in its course the southern portion of N\'asaland 

 into two imequal parts. Here it may be remarked that the Shire 

 is rapidly diminishing in volume from \'ear to year ; whether or not 

 this bears any relation to the assumed general desiccation of Africa 

 is uncertain. In the southern district, then, we have, going from 

 west to east, first the high Kirk range, gradually sloping east to the 

 valley of the Shire, which itself falls rapidly to the south after going 

 half its distance. Port Herald, towards its southern end, is only 

 about 300 feet above sea-level. Crossing the Shire and going east, 

 the land rises rapidly to the uneven plateau known as the Shire 

 Highlands, with its centre somewhere about Blantyre. Further 

 east still there is another considerable drop to Lake Chilwa and the 

 Ruo River, which form the Portuguese border on that side of the 

 Protectorate. There are therefore in Southern Nyasaland, with 

 which I shall perforce have chiefly to concern myself, two belts of 

 high country alternating with two of low. The Shire Highlands, 

 the interior high belt to which most of my notes will relate, has this 

 further peculiarity that out of it there rise a number of isolated 

 hills and mountains which, in the case of Mlanje — the largest, and 

 about 70 miles round — reach a height of 10,000 feet above sea-level, 

 or say, 7,000 feet above the average level of the Highlands, Exactly 



