— C)l — 



VVe hâve a séries in the British Muséum froni ail thèse localities 

 excepting Abvssinia and there seems to be so nuich individual 

 variation exhibited that I do not believe it is possible to recognise 

 inore than one race in \Vest Africa, extending from the Gold Coast 

 to Northern Angola. 



The Abvssinian form niav verv likelv be a good race. It was 

 described bv Nkumann in Oni. Moiuxtsh., igo2, p. 9 from Dalba 

 in Konta, Abvssinia and named D. />. ktijfciisis. 



'Plie bird which Mr. Lowe shot at Lagos should, according to 

 Neumann, be D. p. togoeiisis and certainlv agrées with Neumann's 

 description in having the undersurface, particularlv the belly, 

 less heavilv banded, but some birds from the North Belgian Congo 

 also show this character while others do not, so that it is hardlv 

 possible to keep up the race. That being so the only race I reco- 

 gnise from West Africa is that ol the tvpical form. 



(This appears to be a verv scarce bird, I never saw it alive and 

 the c? obtained was snared by a small bov. It is a useful bird, fee- 

 ding on white ants. — W. P. L.) 



Mesopicus pyrrhogaster. 



P. iCIiloropiciiS) pyrrhogaster JVIai.herbe, Rev. Zool. , 1845, 

 p. 399. — Tvpe localitv : (« Afrique méridionale » o Errorcl) 

 <.< Sierra Leone » cf. Cf. 1. c, p. 400. 



Mr. Lowe obtained seven examples of this Fire-bellied woodpec- 

 ker from Iju — the first actnal records from Nigeria. 



Range. — The species has an extensive range. In the British 

 Muséum we now hâve skins from Sierra Leone, Libéria, Gold 

 Coast, S. Nigeria, and Gaboon, while Dr Reichenow records 

 examples from Cameroon; I cannot see anv différence between birds 

 from the north and the south of its range. 



In the original description of this woodpecker, Malherbe states 

 that his type is a mounted spécimen in the British Muséum from 

 l'Afrique méridionale, and that the bird in question was a female. 

 I cannot find any unmounted spécimen from which Mai.hekbe 



