-^ Fauna : Birds 



Our information about the life habits of this African finfoot 

 are singularly lacking, considering that it is a bird found pretty 

 well all over Tropical Africa in one or two species. Biittikofer 

 learnt from a native that it nested amongst the Cyrtosperma arums 

 by the waterside. In this nest the natives told him there were 

 two eggs. The American genus of the finfoots is also reported 

 to lay two eggs, or, at any rate, a single pair of young were 

 found in a nest attributed to the American form. These young, 

 in the case of the American finfoot, are said to be born naked. 

 Absolutely nothing is known of the condition of the young in 

 the African or Asiatic types. Persons who may read this book 

 in Liberia might note that the finfoot is from many points of 

 view an exceedingly interesting bird, and might use their best 

 endeavours to obtain the nest (or a photograph of it), the eggs, 

 and, above all, the nestlings or young birds for transmission 

 to one or other of our museums. It would be interesting to 

 observe whether or not the young of the African form was born 

 naked or covered with down ; whether not only the thumb, 

 but the index-finger of the wing was armed with a claw, and 

 whether the young aided themselves in moving over the ground 

 by these claws on the naked wing. 



According to Biittikofer, the finfoot was not observed by 

 him in Liberia farther west than Monrovia. This, however, is 

 not a point of much importance, since the very name of the 

 Liberian species — senegalensis — shows that it is found as far west 

 as Senegambia. Specimens have, in fact, been sent to the 

 British Museum from Senegal and from the River Gambia. 

 The present writer has also collected it on the Upper Congo, 

 at Stanley Pool. It not only frequents fresh-water rivers, but 

 also brackish estuaries and mangrove swamps. It moves over 

 the mud or sand with considerable rapidity, and one of these 

 birds seen by me on the Congo, scrambling up a river bank 



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