THE KIROUMBOS 1847 



"hundred yards. Ten days after I sent for some hillmen, who managed to ascend 

 by tying up sticks with strips of cane, in the way they erect ladders to obtain the 

 wild honey from the tallest trees in the forest. It was past six o'clock in the 

 evening before a man reached the hole in which the birds had bred. He found not 

 the slightest vestige of a nest, but a few chips of rotten wood, upon which were 

 laid the three eggs. These I found to be slightly set. While the man was climbing 

 the tree, the birds behaved in a very ridiculous and excited manner. Seated side 

 by side on a bough, they alternately jerked head and tail, keeping up an incessant 

 harsh chatter, and as the crisis approached, and the man drew nearer their property, 

 they dashed repeatedly at his head." 



THE KIROUMBOS 

 Family LEPTOSOMATID^; 



The remarkable birds commonly known by their native name of Kiroumbos are 

 confined to Madagascar and some of the neighboring islands, and may be regarded 

 as aberrant rollers, although they also exhibit affinities to the under-mentioned frog- 

 mouths, in the possession of ' ' powder-down ' ' patches on the sides of the lower 

 part of the back. Only two members of the family are known, both of which are 

 included in the genus Leptosoma. The bill is roller-like, but the nostrils are quite 

 peculiar as regards their situation, being placed in the middle of the upper mandi- 

 ble, and are shut in by a horny plate; while the loral plumes are curved forward so 

 as to entirely hide the base of the bill. The feet are semi-scansorial, that is to say, 

 the fourth toe is cleft to the base and partly reversible, and the tail feathers are ten 

 in number. The sexes are different in color, the male having some considerable 

 metallic sheen, and the upper surface being green glossed with a distinct coppery 

 shade; the tail is grayish black, glossed with metallic green, and, more slightly, 

 with coppery red; the entire under surface is dark ashy gray, becoming white 

 on the abdomen and under tail coverts; and the head is crested and of a leaden- 

 gray color, glossed with metallic green and copper. The total length is sixteen 

 inches. The female is quite different from the male, being rufous brown above, 

 with the head black, and the sides of the head and back of the neck barred with 

 black; the back spotted with buff and glossed with dull green and copper; the tail 

 brown, blackish towards the tip, which is edged with rufous; the tinder surface 

 of body pale fawn color spotted with greenish black. The Madagascar kiroumbo 

 inhabits the island from which it takes its name, as well as Mayotte and Anjouan 

 islands, but in the great Comoro island is replaced by the smaller L. gracile. It is 

 said by Grandidier to live in little parties of ten or twelve individuals on the edges 

 of the woods. As soon as one of the birds is shot, all the others come near the 

 hunter or hover over their dead companions, so that ten or more can be obtained in 

 a quarter of an hour. That the kiroumbo has a certain element of a roller in 

 its composition is shown by its habit of playing in the air, which Sir Edward New- 

 ton describes as follows: "It plays for some time over the same place, ascending 



