286 PYRENESTES OSTRINUS 
tributed throughout its range. In Ashantee Pel procured 
a specimen which Hartlaub refers to the black male form, and 
in the British Museum there is one black and three brown 
specimens, all unsexed. The latter vary considerably in size, 
but not at all in their colouring. In Togoland Mr. Baumann 
obtained a male in the black plumage. 
The only specimen yet recorded from the Niger is the 
unusually large bird from Shongo, to which Forbes referred in 
his notebook: “Nov. 19. Down to palm-grove in morning. 
Got two new birds (Pyronestes ostrinus, $, and two Agialitis 
tricollaris) in the rice-fields.’ The latter bird is Oxyechus 
forbesi. 
In Camaroons Dr. Reichenow found apparently both sexes 
near the coast; Dr. Zeuner met with a flock in brown 
plumage, possibly the females with their young, at Baromi 
Station, and Mr. Bates has procured a small male in the black 
plumage at the Ja River. In Gaboon Du Chaillu collected 
specimens at the Moonda and Camma Rivers, and in Loango 
Falkenstein and Petit have both met with it. Along the 
Congo River Bohndorff obtained the two forms at Manyango 
and Leopoldville, and from Yambuya, on the Aruwimi, there 
are two males in the black plumage, collected by Jameson. 
Another black male, obtained by Emin at Tingasi, is now in 
the British Museum. The species has been obtained by Dr. 
Stuhlmann on the island of Sesse in Victoria Nyanza, which is 
the most eastern range known for these birds. They have also 
been recorded from Angola (Mechow). 
It is strange how seldom the brown female specimens have 
been sexed by their collectors; also that the eggs of this 
species should be spotted, while they are pure unspotted white 
in P. coccineus, according to Mr. Biittikofer. 
Both Mr. Kuschel and Mr. Nehrkorn describe the eggs of 
the present species as of a salmon colour with underlying 
