104 Mr. Austin Roberts : Some 



and down for two hours^ I had perPorce to give up tlie 

 pursuit. Sometimes I would lose sight of the Lird as it 

 flitted along the grass, and even when it did settle in view 

 it would never let me get nearer than fifty yards. When I 

 lost sight of it I had but to wander away for a few minutes 

 and then return to the nest, when (me or other of the parents 

 was sure to be found not far off. Durino; the course of this 

 chase of the parents the male would repeatedly rise sky- 

 wards, singing its peculiar notes as it did so ; these sounded 

 somethinu; like " Ko ko killino; killin<); killin<r." When 

 uttering these notes the male keeps up a steady fluttering 

 of its wings at a great height and then drops swiftly down, 

 uttering a rapid succession of notes. At times it makes a 

 pretence of coming down, but suddenly arrests its course and 

 starts rising and singing again. After having given up the 

 pursuit of the parents, and whilst on my way back to the 

 place where I had left my bicycle, a male bird came down 

 quite close to me and I succeeded in securing it. It proved 

 to be an old male in worn summer-jilumage, and, as expected, 

 proved to be of a species closely allied to minuta, but much 

 larger in size. During numerous observations of these 

 ])uzzling birds I had previously noticed that the owners of 

 the peculiar nests with thin walls and the entrance facing 

 u[)wards were easily recognized by certain characters of 

 structure; but although I had never been able satisfac- 

 torily to identity nests of Ilemipteryx minuta, I felt certain 

 that its nest was unlike that of the true Ilemipteryx. My 

 observations in the present case seem to support this, for the 

 nest was distinctly Oisticoline. Should this prove to be the 

 case, then minuta and the present species must bo placed in 

 the widely-varying genus Cisticola. This is an extraordinary 

 instance of divergence from the habits and structure of other 

 members of the genus. Their habit of rising in the air has 

 its analogy in the case of C. natalensis ; but it has developed 

 the habit to an even greater extent, the result showing in tlie 

 extreme shortness of the first primaiy and tail. It is a com- 

 paratively easy matter to pick out sjiccimens of migratory 



