EUROCEPHALUS RUEPPELLI 449 
placed on a slender branch. The eggs, two in number, were 
white with clear and underlying spots of vandyke brown, and 
measured about 1'l x O84. From Somaliland Mr. Lort 
Phillips writes: “These birds are fairly numerous in the 
thickly wooded districts, their white rumps making them very 
conspicuous when on the wing. Early in March I watched 
a pair for some time busily engaged on a nearly-completed 
nest, which was, for such a large bird, a miracle of ingenuity. 
It was built almost entirely of spiders’ webs, with a foundation 
of moss, and looked like a magnified nest of a Humming-bird. 
It was stuck against the side of a tallish tree, about 12 feet 
from the ground, and at a little distance could scarcely be 
distinguished from the bark.” Two years later he writes: 
“On March 2 Bland brought in a nest of this species with 
the bird to which it belonged. The nest was similar to the 
one I found in 1895, being made entirely of spiders’ webs, so 
closely matted together as to give it, at a little distance, the 
appearance of being made of clay. There were four eggs.” 
In its northern range the species has been obtained at Miessa 
in Danakil and at the Hawash River (Degen). The type is 
one of Riippell’s specimens from Shoa, and other examples have 
been procured in that country by Ragazzi. Erlanger, who met 
with this bird everywhere during his extensive journeys in 
Somaliland and southern Abyssinia, also found two nests, one 
near Harrar, on March 16, with four eggs, and one in the Gurra 
country on April 8, also with four eggs. He gives a nearly 
similar description of both nest and eggs to those of Neumann 
and Lort Phillips. In the White Nile district, its most 
western range, Emin procured examples near Lado, and Heuglin 
met with it along the river to the south of 9° N. lat., while 
Koenig has recently recorded it from Mongalla, the most 
southern province of the Egyptian Sudan. 
There are examples of this species in the British Museum 
from the following localities :— 
