PYROMELANA TAHA 85 
dusky brown with the mandible pale, paler towards the base ; tarsi and feet 
light brown.’’ Wing 2°5. ¢g,18.6.79. Potchefstroom (T. Ayres). 
) 
The Taha Yellow-crowned Bishop-bird ranges from Ben- 
guela and Nyasaland into Natal, but has not been recorded 
from Namaqualand nor from Cape Colony. 
In Portuguese West Africa, according to Anchieta, it is 
known to the natives at Humbe as the ‘‘ Changombe,” 
species has also been met with in this district at Humpata by 
Van der Kellen. 
In the British Museum there are four males from 
Ondonga; two of these, collected in November, are in winter 
plumage, and the others, killed in January, are in breeding 
dress. Andersson writes: “I do not recollect having met 
with this bird in Great Namaqualand or in Southern Damara- 
land, but it breeds in great abundance in Ondonga, and I have 
also seen specimens from Lake Ngami. It is found in flocks 
amongst trees, as well as on the reedy banks of rivers and in 
marshes, where it suspends its nest amongst the tall stalks of 
reeds and coarse grasses.” 
The Taha Bishop-bird is apparently absent from the whole 
of Namaqualand and Cape Colony. The late Sir Andrew 
Smith procured the type of the species and the type of his 
Ploceus dubius at Kurrichaine in Bechuanaland, and Mr. F. A. 
Barratt writes: “I have got them all the way up from the 
Modder River to Potchefstroom, near Bloemfontein, Rusten- 
berg, Pretoria, Nazareth, and I think I saw a few near the 
Goldfields.” In the British Museum there are specimens from 
the neighbourhood of Durban, a large series from Potchef- 
stroom, two from the Cheringoma district of Mosambique, and 
several from Fort Lister and the Palombe River in British 
Central Africa, collected by Mr. Whyte. 
With regard to the habits of the species, Stark writes: ‘In 
and the 
