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228 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
212. CossypHA HUMERALIS. White-shouldered Chat-Thrush. 
Bessonornis humeralis, Layard, B. 8. Afr. p. 132 (1867). 
This is apparently the rarest of the South African Chat-Thrushes, 
and is found only in the interior. Sir Andrew Smith met with it 
on the banks of the Marico river, and procured it from about lat. 
26° S. to the tropics. We have received it from Kuruman, but in 
very limited numbers. Dr. Exton procured it at Kanye in the 
Matabili country, and Mr. T. HE. Buckley shot a male near the 
Makalapse river in Bamangwato on the 25th of October, 1873. He 
writes :—‘ I observed a pair of these birds on a small stony hill, 
and procured the male. ‘They were not at all shy; but from the 
thickness of the cover it was difficult to get far enough off to shoot 
them without spoiling them. They flew and hopped about the 
bushes in search of food, but seemed to avoid the open ground.” 
Mr. Ayres obtained a specimen in the Transvaal, and observes as 
follows :—‘‘I shot this scarce bird among the thick scrub on the 
Limpopo; the stomach contained insects ; it was lively and restless 
in its actions.” 
Adult.—Head, mantle, and scapulars grey, with a slight tinge of 
olive on the back; rump and upper tail-coverts orange chestnut, 
deeper on the latter; tail also orange, with a broad terminal band 
of black, the outer feather also blackish on the outer web, and the 
two centre feathers entirely blackish ; wing-coverts black, with a 
broad longitudinal white patch formed of the inner lesser and 
median coverts, and the outer web or the whole of a few of the 
inner greater coverts; quills blackish, with a narrow external 
border of greyish buff; over the eye a narrow white line, extending 
from the base of the bill to the hinder ear-coverts; lores, cheeks, 
and entire side of face and of neck black; chin and a patch on the > 
sides of the upper breast also black ; sides of body, vent, and under 
tail-coverts pale orange-buff; under wing-coverts white, the edge of 
the wing black; bill black ; legs brownish-black; iris dark hazel. 
Total length, 6°5 inches; culmen, 0°6; wing, 2°95; tail, 29; 
tarsus, 1°15. 
Fig. Smith, Ill. Zool. 8. Afr, Birds, pl. 48. 
