258 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
waved with dusky cross-bars in certain lights, the centre tail-feathers 
edged with ashy fulvous, the onter ones with deep buff, more broadly 
on the external feathers; lores, eyebrows, feathers round the eye 
and ear-coverts bright chestnut-red; cheeks and entire throat 
white; across the chest a distinct collar of black; rest of under 
surface buffy white inclining to dull tawny buff on the sides of the 
body; thighs blackish; under tail-coverts dark brown, margined 
with ashy fulvous; on the sides of the body a few hair-like streaks 
of dark brown, a little broader on the flanks; under wing-coverts 
tawny buff; “bill black, legs and toes flesh-coloured, iris ochry- 
brown” (Andersson) ; iris reddish hazel (7. C. Atmore). Total 
length 5 inches; culmen,-.0°5; wing, 1:9; tail, 3°05; tarsus, 0°85. 
Adult Female—Similar to the male. Total length, 55 inches ; 
culmen, 0°5; wing, 2°05; tail, 3°05; tarsus, 0°85. 
Fig. Smith, Ill. Zool. S. Afr. Aves, pl. 75, fig. 1. 
243, Drym@ca AFFINIs. Tawny-flanked Grass-Warbler. 
Drymoica afivis et D. melanorhyncha, Layard, B. 8. Afr. pp. 
89, 92. 
This species has a dark subterminal spot on the tail-feathers at all 
ages, and is always perfectly uniform on the under surface; the 
abdomen is whitish without any tinge of yellow, and the flanks are 
fulvous brown. In the breeding plumage it has a black bill, which 
has caused it to be confounded by some authors with D. 
melanorhyncha of Western Africa, but this black bill is not a 
specific character, as it is evidently gradually assumed. The young 
birds, and probably those in winter plumage have the bill browner: 
in winter the birds have distinct rufous edgings to the wing-coverts, 
and are otherwise browner in appearance. Sir Andrew Smith says 
that it “inhabits dry flats in the interior of South Africa, and flits 
to and fro, in search of insects, amongst the shrubs with which they 
are more or less coated.” We have not seen it from any locality 
south of Natal, where Mr. Ayres found it in 1860, building among 
stalks of high weeds. Mr. T. L. Ayres has forwarded several 
specimens to Captain Shelley from the neighbourhood of Pinetown ; 
these were all in warm breeding plumage and were killed in 
February and March. In the Transvaal, writes Mr. Thomas Ayres, 
“this species frequents weeds, high grass, and low bush, and is 
generally distributed over the country.” We have examined 
