180 Dr. E. Hopkinson—The White-crowned Chat-thrush


silent, uttering only occasionally, perhaps, a few times in succession,

one of its commoner flute-like notes ... I had the great good fortune

to pitch my camp on the Kurumadzi, just beside the haunt of one

of these charming songsters, and I would lie awake every morning

before sunrise listening to its song. It possessed a wonderful variety

of notes. . . . Perhaps the most striking feature of the song is that

these notes are frequently accompanied by a high, long-drawn

‘ Wheee-wheee-wheee ’, or sometimes ‘ plee ! heplee ! heplee ! ’

particularly at the end of the song, which usually begins low and

gradually increases in volume. I at first took this to be in the nature

of a duet, scarcely believing it possible that one bird could produce

both sets of notes at the same time, but I have now had several

opportunities of observing the bird while singing, and have little

doubt that it does so.”


Mr. Swynnerton goes on to describe a nest he found in the head of

a thick branching stump about 3 feet from the ground, overhanging

the mud at the edge of a pool. It contained two eggs, of which he gives

a coloured figure opposite p. 443 of the same volume. They are a light

brown in colour.


About the habits of the last two South African species of Cossypha

little is mentioned in the Birds of Soxit.h Africa, but about the “ Jan

Fredrik ” ( C. caffra) we are there told (p. 213) that it is common about

Cape Town and throughout nearly the whole of South Africa, where it

is popularly known as the “ Cape Robin ”. It resembles an English

Robin more or less in habits, and is described by Dr. Stark as


“ a sociable bird . . . found generally in gardens and about the

houses, where it hops and glides about in the bushes, drooping its

wings and jerking its tail when it alights. . . It has a sweet song,

heard usually in the morning, in addition to the cry . . . 1 Jan

Fredric’. . . The Woodwards state that in Natal it is by no means

so familiar a bird as about Cape Town, and that it is there shy and

retiring, and only found in the thick woods.


“ This bird builds early, often in August, in Cape Town and the

neighbourhood ; the nest, which resembles very closely that of

an English Robin, is placed on a tree stump or in a bush two or three

feet from the ground. . . the eggs . . . are somewhat like those of the

European Robin, being a very j3ale blue, profusely mottled with

pale rufous, so. that the egg appears to be a pale brown.”


From these accounts it will be seen that song is one of the chief

attractions of these South African species of Cossypha?, and one would

almost expect that ours must have something more musical than the



