SIGMODUS MENTALIS 467 
“ The birds of this genus have a strange appearance, which is 
heightened by the yellow iris, and have also strange ways. 
They go about in bands of half-a-dozen, flitting, one at a time, 
from one tree-top to another; they have peculiar cries, and 
make a loud snapping noise, which sounds as if made with 
the bill. They show little fear, and are easy to shoot. They 
are not common, and as they always attract attention when 
seen, and are remembered as peculiar, I believe I can count 
up the times that I have seen them. Sometimes they have 
been met with in the big forest, sometimes in the second- 
growth trees, but never very near a village.” 
The British Museum contains examples of this species 
from the following localities: Camaroon—River Ja, Efulen 
and Zima country (Bates); French Congo—Gaboon (Verreaux 
and Walker), Moonda River (Du Chaillu) ; Portuguese Congo— 
Loango (Lucan). 
Sigmodus mentalis. (Pl. 57, fig. 2.) 
Sigmodus mentalis, Sharpe, Journ. Linn. Soc. Zool. xvii. p. 425 (1884) 
Sassa; Shelley, B. Afr. i. No. 669 (1896); Reichen. Vég. Afr. ii. 
p. 538 (1903); Sharpe, Handl. B. iv. p. 274 (1903). 
Sigmodus griseimentalis, Sharpe, Ibis, 1884, p. 359 nom. nud. 
Sigmodus rufiventris mentalis, Neumann, Ornith. Monatsb. 1899, p. 89. 
Adult. Similar to S. rufiventris, from which it differs in having only a 
few feathers of the chin bluish-white, the rest black, the head bluer and less 
inclining to white towards the bill and the cinnamon brown of the lower 
parts darker and richer; bill dark pink coral; feet red. Total length 8:5 
inches, culmen 0:70, wing 4:7, tail 3:1, tarsus 0°7. Type, Sassa, Oct. 
(Bohndorff). 
Bohndorff’s Red-billed Shrike inhabits the northern water- 
shed of the Congo. 
The type, which is now in the British Museum, was 
discovered in the Sassa country of the north-east corner 
of the Belgian Congo, by Bohndorff, and other specimens 
