418 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
from Natal, with the following note: “ It was a great piece of luck 
my getting this nest, as they generally breed in such abominably out- 
of-the-way places. Mr. Ayres tells me he never has been able to get 
one. I got one on the ledge of a precipice on the ‘ Umhlalunan’ 
River about three or four miles from us. I found it while out 
shooting, but it was of course too high to get at, so I brought a 
ladder to the spot, and after piling up stones in the river, and 
adding long pieces of bush-wood to the end of the ladder, we 
' managed to get at it. I found three eggs in the nest, all varying in 
size and colour. ‘The nest itself was formed of sticks on the outside 
and lined with wool, rags, goats’ hair, &c., and smelt most 
disgusting—like the monkey cages in the Zoological Gardens.” 
Adult.—General colour above and below glossy black, without any 
admixture of brown, excepting a slight shade on the inner second- 
aries ; head purplish brown-black; round the hinder neck a very 
broad white collar; throat and fore neck dull brown, contrasting 
with the rest of the under surface, from which it is separated by a 
concealed band of white, the feathers composing which are either 
edged with white or are pure white, sometimes with dark brown 
centres ; ‘bill very dark brown, the tips of the mandibles of a white 
horn-colour; legs and toes brownish black; iris hazel-brown” 
(Andersson). Total length, 18 inches; culmen, 2°95; wing, 15°7; 
tail,.7:1; tarsus, 2°06. 
Young.—More dusky brown than the adult, the lower feathers of 
the white neck-collar mesially streaked with brown; below with a 
very distinct white collar across the chest, all the feathers of which, 
however, are much mixed with brown. 
Fig. Le Vaill, Ois. d’Afr. pl, 50. 
Fam. STURNIDA. 
400. Burnaaa arricana, L. African Ox-pecker. 
The present bird does not appear to enter within the limits of 
the Cape Colony, but Great Namaqua Land and the neighbourhood 
of the tropic seem to be its principal habitats. In its manners it 
resembles the Starlings, but from the peculiar structure of its bill 
for extracting “ bots,” and other parasitic insects feeding upon cattle, 
it is constantly found perching upon them, and clinging to them 
by means of its sharp and curved claws. We have no record of its 
capture in Natal, but in the Transvaal, according to Mr. Ayres, it is 
common from the Mariqua all along the Limpopo, but is not found 
