270 



CLIMBING LEAFLOVE. 



PhyUastrephus scandens, SWAINS. 



PLATfi XXX. 



Olive above ; fulvous white beneath ; crown, ears and front, 

 light cinerous ; quills, rump and tail, ferruginous ; frontal 

 feathers short, rather stiff, and advancing on the bill ; 

 claws broad and much crooked. 



LE VAILLANT, whose remarks on the habits of the 

 birds he procured in Southern Africa are always 

 interesting and often valuable, describes, under the 

 name of Le Jaboteur*, a very singular thrush, 

 plain in colour, but curious in its economy. It lives 

 in little parties of five or six, which he always found 

 busily employed in exploring the ground under 

 close and entangled thickets, turning over the dead 

 leaves, both with the bill and feet, in search of 

 worms and ground-insects ; each individual of the 

 party keeping up a querulous note of its own, dif- 

 ferent from that of each of its companions. These 

 birds were rarely seen to perch ; while, from being 

 almost hid in such situations, and the colour of 

 their plumage so exactly agreeing with that of the 

 withered leaves around them, they were very diffi- 

 cult to procure. 



The bird we are now to describe is certainly 

 * Ois. d'Afrique, ii. pi. 112, fig. 1, (Ph. terrestris, Swains). 



