MYRMECGCICHLA FORMICIVORA. 231 
Victoria Falls, Zambesi, and was received at the Museum through 
Mr. Cutter. : 
It is very difficult to know where to place this new genus. It 
has the plumage of a dusky Chat, but in the form of its bill and feet 
it approaches Crateropus ; from this genus, however, it differs in the 
long loose plumage of the rump, and in the long upper tail-coverts 
which remind us of Bradypterus ; altogether it is a peculiar form 
which must be placed among the Thrushes, leading off from the 
Crateropi to the Chats and Warblers. 
Adult.—General colour above and below sooty-brown, a few of 
the frontal plumes, the lores, and the throat edged with greyish 
white; wings and tail darker than the body, and approaching to 
black, the primaries with a very large spot of white on the inner 
webs, and the three outer tail-feathers with a large spot of white at 
the tip; bills and legs black. Total length, 10:2 inches; culmen, 
0°95; wing, 4:2; tail, 5°5; tarsus, 1:25. 
217. MyrmucocicHia rormictvora. Southern Ant-eating Wheatear. 
Le Vaillant found this Wheatear near the Sunday and Zwartkop 
rivers, not far from Algoa Bay, where we also observed it in abun- 
dance during a flying visit to that locality. He says that it perches 
on high trees, but in this he is certainly wrong, as far as our own 
experience goes, for we have never seen them perch even on a bush, 
though Mr, Andersson says that they do so. Like S. pileata they 
habitually conceal themselves in rat-holes. Le Vaillant states that 
he found their nests in holes or under rocks, and that the eggs were 
white. 
We have received many specimens from the neighbourhood of 
Colesberg and Kuruman, and Mr. T. C. Atmore forwarded us a 
skin of one obtained by him at Burghendorp in May 1871. Mr. 
Rickard observes that it is common at Port Elizabeth, but is never 
met with away from ant-hills, in which he believes they roost and 
also breed. We found it to bea curiously local bird, and during 
our recent visit to the eastern frontier we would drive for the best 
part of a day without seeing a single specimen, and then suddenly 
we would come upon a spot where there were two or three families. 
Pass this spot as often as we would, there we always saw the birds ! 
There is one such place between Grahamstown and Table Farm, 
where we knew that we could always shoot a specimen, we might 
