PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE—HAAGNER. 497 
crept under the tree from whence the sound emanated. I searched 
the branches carefully, and finally traced the call to a certain twig. 
I then climbed the tree cautiously, but look as I would I could 
not locate the bird among the twigs and blossoms, although as soon 
as I remained quiet it continued uttering its cry. I was beginning 
to lose patience when the bird moved, changing its position, and 
only then I saw it, wondering at the same time why I had not done 
so sooner.” Mrs. Barber also relates the following of this species: 
“ The black sunbird is never absent from that magnificent forest tree 
the ‘ kaffir-boom’ (/’rythrina caffra) ; all day long the cheerful notes 
of these birds may be heard among its spreading branches, yet the 
general aspect of the tree, which consists of a large mass of scarlet 
and purplish-black blossoms without a single green leaf, blends and 
harmonizes with the colors of the black sunbird to such an extent that 
half a dozen of them may be feeding among its blossoms without be- 
ing conspicuous or even visible.” 
Family ZosTEROPIDA. 
I will only make a passing reference to this family, as all the mem- 
bers are doubtless of protective coloration. I have often noticed how 
the green plumage of Zosterops virens and Z. capensis assimilate to 
the foliage of the trees which they frequent. 
Family LAND, 
One would hardly think that the members of this pugnacious 
family required protective resemblance, but I noticed a case with 
regard to the ordinary fiskal shrike, which leads one to an interesting 
phase of the subject. The male is a fairly conspicuous bird in its 
dress of black and white, the female, with her duller feathering, not 
nearly so much, and the fully fledged young still less so; as a matter 
of fact, the last named possess a plumage of a most protective nature, 
as the following will show: On December 29, 1904, while collecting on 
the Jokeskei River, District of Pretoria, I first noticed this fact. I 
found three fully fledged young shrikes hopping about a tree. As I 
neared them they suddenly stiffened themselves and sat motionless. 
When I kept still they soon recommenced their excursions among the 
branches, but I had only to shout or shake a branch of the tree when 
they would suddenly assume the stiffened posture alluded to. They 
seemed (unconsciously, I presume) to rely on the perfect harmony 
existing between the tints of their ashy-brown plumage and that 
of the tree bark and twigs of their arboreal abode. They could not 
fly more than a couple of yards, so that the assimilative nature of 
their feathering must have been of immense assistance to them. This 
