— I30 — 



Distingtiishing charactcrs. — Entire head, except ear coverts, 

 glossy blue-black, not so blue as in coeruleiceps] bine head sharply 

 defined froin the hack. 



(Either verv retiring or rare. I onlv met with one bird in long 

 grass; the ovaries were enhirged and it would soon hâve been 

 nesting. — \V. P. L.) 



Centropus monachus occidentalis. 



ientropus i/ioiiiic/ius occidentalis Nkim., Bull. B. (). C, XXI, 

 iqo8, p. 77 : Tvpe localitv : Ogowe River, Gaboon. 



Neither Messrs. Lowe nor Kemp obtained spécimens of the West 

 African Bliie-headed Coucal in Southern Nigeria but there is an 

 example in the British Muséum from Lagos collected bv Major 



EWART. 



From Northern Nigeria \ve hâve spécimens collected at Shonga 



bv FORBES. 



The races of this species seem to be in a muddle. C. vionachus 



was last reviewed bv C. Grakt iii Ibis, 1915, pp. 421-422 and 



Messrs. Sclater and Praed accepted his rev-ision, naming their 



birds from the Sudan 6'. m. fischeri {Ihis, 1919, p. 646). Likevvise, 



when naming Bovd Ai.exander's collection from Cameroon 



Mountain, I foUowed Mr Grant and thus named the West African 



spécimens C. 1/1. Jischeii believing that this was the onlv valid form 



found west of the Nile. The truth appears to be that Reichenow 



gave a somewhat misleading description of the bird he called 



fischeri and that \ve hâve not really got a single spécimen of this 



form in the British Muséum collection. Professor Nelmann in a 



letter to Mr W . L. Sci.ater writes of this bird « To treat this 



species as a geographical form of C. inoiiachns is a great mistake. 



C. fischeri \i'2i% nothing whatev-er to do with (\ inonachiis\ It bas a 



totally different-looking bill which is more curved and thinner 



than in anv other species of African Centropus. While in ail -the 



other forms of C. inondchus the bill is entirelv black in adult 



spécimens, the lower mandible of <"'. fischeri, seen from below, is 



