388 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
and make a curious ‘moping’ noise, something resembling the | 
word ‘mope,’ drawn out into a long low whistle. I have some 
doubt in stating that the bird calls during the night, as I think 
there are two species of them. There was one species very common 
at the ‘Umboolo’ Forest, which used to call all day and night, and 
T looked after them for hours, but could never get a shot, as they 
always left off calling when I got close to them. This same bird 
used to bother me at Tharfield (near the Kowie) when I was a boy, 
as I could never get a shot at one, and only once saw a specimen. 
1t was about four yards off ina thick bush, and to the best of my 
memory seemed a browner bird, about the same size and shape as 
the enclosed. The one I send calls more quickly, and it usually 
keeps on five or six times and then leaves off for about two minutes. 
I may be wrong, and write to you in hopes that the thing may be 
brought to light, as they ought to be common in the western 
forests. They are known to the Dutch by the name of the Spook 
Vogel (ghost bird), and the low call of the bird during the night — 
certainly would lead a person inclined to these things to think that 
there was something supernatural about the ery. Since writing I 
have had a conversation with my brother about this bird, and he 
tells me he once saw one of them pounce upon and kill a small bird 
after the manner of a butcher bird. He is opposed to my idea of 
there being two species.”* 
Captain Shelley obtained a single specimen from Durban, where 
he thinks it cannot be very common. One skin is in the British 
Museum, procured during the Livingstone Expedition to the Zambesi, 
and it occurs in South-Western Africa, as Anchieta has met with it 
at Humbe on the Cunene River, and also at Capangombe. It is 
found on the West Coast and also in North-Eastern Africa. 
Adult.—General colour above light olive-green; wing-coverts 
tipped with yellow, whiter on the greater series ; quills ashy brown, 
externally olive-green like the back, the primaries margined with 
yellow towards their tips, the secondaries entirely olive-green and — 
tipped with yellow like the coverts; tail olive-green, tipped with 
yellow; head and hind neck, sides of face, cheeks and sides of neck 
blue-grey ; lores and a ring of plumes round the eye white ; entire 
* We suspect that our correspondent has sometimes seen and heard the 
other large Bush Shrike, Zaniarius senegalus, and that this must be the 
© browner bird” to which he alludes. 
