- 92 — 



wrote lus description, nor does tlie bird conie froiii Soiitli Africa. 

 The inounted spécimen has now disappeared and I imagine tliat it 

 was wrongly labelled as coniing from 1 Afrique méridionale. The 

 description however (in French) lits the itmz\t oi M. pyrrhogaster 

 fairly well and as I do not know anv other species to which it can 

 applv, we may keep up Mai.hkrhk's name but the tvpe localitv iniist 

 be « Sierra Leone » for the foUowing reason. Mai.mkrbk on p. 400 

 {Rev. ZooL, 1845) notes that he saw a bird in the Stockholm 

 Muséum, collected at Sierra Leone in 1794 bv Afze;i.ius which he 

 believed to be the maie of his P. />\j r/iooastcr ; it dififered from his 

 description of that bird onlv in having a red head — the distingni- 

 shing character of the maie bird. 



M. pyrrhogaster does not, of course, inhabit any part of South 

 Africa and has never been recorded south of Gaboon. 



{Mesopictts pyrrhogaster. — This is the common woodpecker of 

 the district and its loud rapping on the trees is audible at a great 

 distance. A g n° 146 shows traces of red on the head. — W. P. L.) 



Mesopicus goertae poicephalus. 



Dendrobates poicephalus Swains, Birds W. Afr., vol. H, 1837, 

 p. 154. — Type localitv : « Western Africa » = Gambia 

 (Reich.). 



A single maie e.xample of the West African Grev Woodpecker 

 was obtained bv Kohin Kkmp at Abutschi in September 1905 and 

 another at Abeokuta bv Robin for F. Nicholson (B. M. coll. un- 

 dated). The M . goertae group of Woodpeckers hâve been reviewed 

 twice within récent years bv Mr. C. Grant {Ibis, 1915, pp. 467- 

 470) and by Messrs. Sclater and Praed {Ibis, 1919, pp. 631-633). 

 I am following the last named authors in their conclusions as thev 

 had a larger séries to deal with than when Mr. Grant worked on 

 the group. 



The Sénégal bird M. goertae goertae (Muix.) seems to be dis- 

 tinguished from M . g . poicephalus bv its more vellow underside'and 

 lighter grev throat and I therefore agrée with Messrs. Sci.ater and 



