44 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
Mr. Ayres states that it is not rare in Natal, but extremely wild, and 
he has also procured it in the Transvaal. One specimen was shot in 
the Zambesi country by Dr. Dickerson at Chibisa, and we saw several 
pairs on the East Coast of Africa, and shot two at Fazy, a native 
village within a degree and a half of the Line; here they seemed 
quite fearless and allowed an easy approach. Senor Anchieta has 
obtained it at Biballa and Huilla in Mossamedes, and also at Humbe 
on the River Cunéné. Mr. Andersson writes: ‘On March Ist, 1865, 
I observed an adult soaring very low, just in front of my window 
[probably at Objimbinque] and I have subsequently killed this bird 
in Damara Land.” 
In the colony it frequents mountain ravines clothed with timber, 
and keeps to the same spot for many successive years: shy and 
suspicious, it rarely falls to the gun. Mr. Ayres (Ibis, 1860, p. 203) 
says that the stomach of one he killed contained the remains of 
lizards and of a poisonous snake, which could not have been less 
than seven or eight feet in length. ‘This snake,” he adds, “is 
called by the Caffres ‘ Armaunbak.’ A favourite dog of ours, bitten 
last year by a snake of this species, died from the effects of the 
poison in less than an kour.” 
Mr. Henry Jackson has sent an egg of this fine bird from Nel’s 
Poort. He says that they nest in the top of a high tree and lay but 
one egg: the latter is pure white and its axis measures about 3-1 
inches, the diameter being 2-4. At the Berg river we found that they 
bred yearly on the tops of dense bushes in the month of September. 
Some of the eggs procured by us and by Mr. J. Kotze were slightly 
spotted. Mr. Henry Buckley writes: “The ege of this species is 
pointed, white, and is 2°75 inches long by 2°27 broad.” 
Adult.—Head and neck blackish-brown, tinged with grey; back 
and shoulders of the same colour, each feather tipt with white. 
Throat black and white; breast brownish-black ; lower parts white ; 
tail grey, crossed with broad black bands, tipt with white. Length, 
29 inches; wing, 21; tail, 11; tarsus, 3°85; iris pale straw-yellow; 
cere and gape olive-yellow ; bill blackish. 
Young.—Above brown; the feathers of the head and upper surface 
broadly margined with light tawny or pale fulvyous; quills blackish, 
the secondaries browner, all broadly margined and tipped with pale 
tawny, inner webs white below; the secondaries ashy grey towards 
their tips; tail brown, tipped with fulvous and crossed with three 
