32 The Oologisis' Record, June i, 1922. 



four nests containing each three eggs, on June iSth, July 3rd and 9th, 

 and August ist, and three or four with young. The nests with eggs 

 were all found by happening to see the bird as she flew off, generally 

 twenty yards or more ahead of one. I tried many times without 

 success to watch the birds to their nests. When eggs or young are 

 in the nest, and danger threatens, one or both birds utter a harsh 

 alarm note which I thought sounded rather like " be-ware." 



By the middle of August the birds are silent, and in October 

 there seems a tendency for old and young to form flocks. I should 

 say that two broods were ordinarily hatched, one early in May and 

 one in July, but this is conjecture. At all events the breeding 

 season falls entirely in the cold dry months when the grass is dry. 

 Two nests I saw were at the foot of tufts of vegetation, the rest 

 were sheltered by stones. They are small frail structures of grass, 

 lined with rootlets, and there is often something in the nature of 

 a small " ramp " of twigs on the front lip. The birds apparently 

 scrape a shallow hole before building. The largest of twelve eggs 

 measures 19I mm. x 14 mm., the smallest 17 mm. x 13I mm., 

 so there is a good deal of variation in size, as also is there in marking?. 

 The ground colour is a very pale bluish-white, thickly covered, in 

 some cases with fine spots, in others with larger blotches, of various 

 shades of brown. It is noteworthy that no species of Fringillaria 

 lays Bunting-like eggs, in spite of the fact that the only generic 

 character rehed upon to mark this genus from Emberiza is the 

 absence of white outermost tail-feathers. One is aware that, accord- 

 ing to the highest journalistic authority, the markings on birds' 

 eggs have no teleological significance, so I dare not suggest that the 

 circumstance referred to is anything more than another addition 

 to the phenomenally long list of similar coincidences due (as a 

 corollary) solely to chance. 



C. F. B. 



NOTES FROM NYASALAND— III. 



Family Laniidae. 



Reichenow gives no fewer than one hundred and forty-one 

 Shrikes for Africa, a figure which, however, includes, as units, many 

 more geographical variations within a species. Of this total, there 

 are found in Nyasaland sixteen good species, comprising one 



