352 MALIMBUS SCUTATUS 



Probably on the outskirts of this latter forest district Haynes 

 procured the specimen, labelled in the British Museum 

 " Accra," for it is essentially a woodland bird, and when I was 

 there with T. E. Buckley we never saw it on the open Accra 

 plains, but found it some twenty-five miles inland, abundant 

 ill the dense forest surrounding Abouri. In Togoland Dr. 

 Biittner found a nest containing eggs, on April 8, at Bismarck- 

 burg, which he refers, I thing wrongly, to this species, for he 

 describes the nest as " oval, with a rather short entrance 

 passage and very similar to that of H. cucullatus. The eggs 

 were of a yellowish or greeuish ground with large rufous 

 brown and violet spots, and measured about 0-9 x 0*65 inch." 

 They probably belonged to Hypantorms cucullatus. In the 

 comparatively little explored district between Togoland and 

 Camaroons I find it recorded only from the Lower Niger 

 (Ansorge) ; but in Camaroons Crossley procured two speci- 

 mens, and according to Dr. Reichenow it is generally dis- 

 tributed over that country, where it is, however, rarer than 

 M. seutatns. Mr. Sjostedt also records the species as abundant 

 at Bonge, Kitta, and Ekundu, and with young, able to fly in 

 March. In Gaboon specimens have been collected at Cape 

 Lopez (Laurien), Muni, Moonda and Camma Rivers (Du 

 Chailhi). Falkenstein met with it on the Loango Coast, and 

 no doubt it inhabits the wooded districts generally of West 

 Africa, to as far east as the Niam-Niam country, where Bohn- 

 dorff procured a specimen at Ndoruma, which is now in the 

 British Museum. 



Malimbus scutatus. 



Sycobius scutatus, Cass. Proc. Philad. Ac. 1849, p. 157 Sierra Leone ; id. 



Acad. Philad. 1850, p. 297, pi. 41, figs. 1, 2. 

 Malimbus scutatus, Sbarpe, Cat. B. M. xiii. p. 482 (1890) ; Shelley, 



B. Afr. I. No. 485 (1896) ; Eeiclien. Yog. Afr. iii. p. 22 (1904). 

 Malimbus rubropersonatus, Shelley, Ibis, 1887, p. 41, pi. 2, fig. 2 Gold 



Coast. 



