1922.] Recently published Ornithological Works. 193 



Prof. Macoun's eldest son, James M. Macoun, also a 

 botanist and attached to the Geological Survey, predeceased 

 him; his second son, Mr. W. T. Macoun, is the Dominion 

 Horticulturist, and survives him. 



XI. — Notices of recent Ornithological Publications. 



Chapin on African Birds. 



[Notes on a new Ox-pecker and other little-known Birds of the 

 Congo. Bj' James P. Chapin. Anier. Mus. Novit. no. 17, 1921, 

 pp. 1-lG.] 



Among his Congo collections Mr. Chapin has found a 

 new Oxpecker related to Biiphagus africanus, but darker 

 and smaller. He and his companion Mr. Lang came across 

 it at Zambi on the lower Congo, where it was commonly 

 seen about the domestic cattle. He names it Buphagus langi 

 and illustrates the ditference between the new and the two 

 well-known species in a neat sketch. He further proposes 

 the subgeneric term Buphagoides to distinguish the Red- 

 i)illed species B. ertjthrorhynclnts. 



Plis next note is on a Sunbird, Nectarinia congensis^ 

 described by van Oort in 1910, and not apparently met 

 with since except by himself. He obtained a good many 

 examples along the middle Congo. 



The affinities of Neolestes and Nicator are discussed in the 

 third note. These genera have been always associated with 

 the Laniidse, though undoubtedly aberrant. Mr. Chapin 

 without hesitation assigns the first to the Pycnonotidse, while 

 he finds Nicator stands somewhat apart with relations to the 

 Shrikes, the Bulbulss, and especially to Bleda. The juvenile 

 plumage of Sigmodus, to which another sketch is devoted, 

 is very remarkable and most unlike that of the Shrikes, 

 with which the genus is often associated. He states "as 

 passerine families go the Prionopidae seem to be well marked 

 off from the true Shrikes, but the affinities to the two typical 

 African genera of some other forms usually associated with 

 them seem to me most questionable.'^ 



SER. XI. VOL. IV. o 



