262 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
its sole food.” Mr. Thomas Ayres also observes :—“ This species 
frequents long coarse grass in the valleys and on the hill-sides; its 
flight is tolerably strong, and it does not attempt to hide when dis- 
turbed, but at once takes wing.” We have seen a considerable 
number of specimens from the neighbourhood of Pinetown 
collected by Mr. T. L. Ayres and now in Captain Shelley’s possession. 
Mr. T. E. Buckley shot a male near Pietermaritzburg on the 2nd of 
May, 1873, and writes :—“ I only observed this one specimen, which 
I shot among some small reeds by a small stream: it was rather 
shy.” During his recent excursion to south-eastern Africa he also 
procured two examples in Suaziland on the 19th of June, 1876. 
Adult male.—General colour clear tawny brown, with paler and 
more fulyous margins to the feathers of the back, all the upper sur- 
face broadly streaked with black down the centre of the feathers, 
these black streaks slightly shaded on each side with rufous; wing- 
coverts dark brown, externally fulvous, rather inclining to ashy buff 
on the median series; primaries dark brown, tipped with whitish 
and externally sandy rufous, the inner secondaries blackish in the 
centre, edged all round with broad margins of tawny buff; rump 
uniform ashy fulvous; upper tail-coverts tawny buff, mesially 
streaked with blackish; the tail-feathers dark brown with margins 
of clear tawny buff, the centre feathers paler at tip with a faintly- 
indicated subterminal bar of black: this subterminal bar very dis- 
tinct and broad on all the other feathers, which are conspicuously 
tipped with pale tawny-buff, the outermost feathers being externally 
edged with the latter colour and only having the black subterminal 
bar on the inner web; lores dull whitish; feathers round the eye 
light fulvous, as also a very faint eyebrow; cheeks and sides of 
face yellowish buff, with a shade of brown on the ear-coverts ; 
throat white, as also the centre of the abdomen; rest of under 
surface of body tawny yellow, browner on the sides of the upper 
breast; the under wing- and tail-coverts tawny, the edge of the 
wing whitish: quills ashy brown below, the inner web rufous from 
the base upwards; thighs deep tawny rufous; “bill yellow, the 
culmen black; legs light brown; iris dark hazel” (Buckley). 
Total length, 6°5 inches; culmen, 0°75; wing, 2°9; tail, 3°28; tarsus, 1-2. 
The female is smaller. Total length, 5°6 inches; culmen, 0°6;° 
wing, 2°45; tail, 2°7; tarsus, 1:05. 
Fig. Smith, Ill. Zool. 8. Afr. Aves, Pl. 80. 
