84 Mr. E. Lort Phillips on Birds 



mimosas. Like those of Tewtor dinemelli, they are protected 

 from above by a covering of the sharpest thorns^ the entrance 

 being from below. 



45. Lamprocolius chalybeus (Ehr.) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. 

 Brit. Mus. xiii. p. 176. 



This Starling — unlike Notauges sup erhus ,y^\nch. was always 

 with us — was met with only at one place on the upper 

 Goolis, called " Darra As/'' where there was a small plateau 

 covered with a short heath, among which I saw about twenty 

 pairs daily while we camped there. That they were so 

 local was all the more extraordinary as we came across 

 several of such plateaux. The birds differ again from 

 Notauges superbus, to which they must be closely allied, in 

 their choice of breeding-places, for while the latter species, 

 like Tewtor dinemelli, makes huge thorny structures at the 

 ends of the mimosa boughs, L. chalybeus prefers holes in the 

 trunk of some big tree. Indeed, a pair had a nest in a cleft 

 of a cedar under which we were encamped, and reminded us 

 forcibly of our common Starling in their noisy attendance on 

 their young. 



46. CoRVUs EDiTHiE, Lort Phillips, Bull. B. O. C. iv. 

 p. xxxvi ; Ibis, 1895, p. 383. 



Only four of these birds were seen during the whole trip. 

 At Dejamio, in the Hainwaina Plain, I was writing in my 

 tent, and, hearing a distinctly different caw-caw to that of 

 our usual camp-followers, I went out and saw two brown 

 Crows seated on a koodoo head that had been put outside 

 the zareeba hedge for the birds to clean. Directly they saw 

 me they flew away, but came circling back over the camp 

 nearly out of shot. However, I was lucky enough to drop one, 

 to the huge delight of the natives, who never cease to wonder 

 at a bird being shot flying. The other bird flew straight 

 away. Three days later I saw another pair about five miles 

 from camp, but as I only had a heavy rifle Avith me I could 

 not get one. Was this a fresh pair, or had the survivor 

 mysteriously supplied itself with a mate, as Ravens have been 

 reported to have done in districts where only a solitary pair 



