208 CUCULID^J CENTBOPUS 



476. Centropus superciliosus. White-browed Coucal. 



Centropus superciliosus, Hempr. $ Ehren. Symb. Phys. Aves, p. " s " 

 (1833) ; Gurney, Ibis, 1859, p. 247 [Natal] ; Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 246 

 (1867) ; Sharpe, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 620 ; Buckley, Ibis, 1874, p. 366 ; 

 Shelley, Cat. B. M. xix, p. 363 (1891) ; Alexander, Ibis, 1900, p. 107 

 [Zambesi]. 



Description. Adult male. Forehead, crown and ear-coverts 

 dark brown, a very distinct buffy-white eyebrow ; nape, upper back 

 and sides of the head and neck buffy-white with conspicuous white 

 shafts and black edges to the feathers ; wings rufous-brown, a few 

 of the wing-coverts with white shafts and the primaries more 

 rufous, tipped with brown ; rump and tail-coverts dark green barred 

 with pale rufous; tail-feathers dark green, narrowly tipped with 

 white and barred at the base with pale rufous ; below, buffy-white, 

 the feathers at the base of the throat and upper breast, including 

 the under wing-coverts, with marked white shafts and dusky edging, 

 those of the flanks also barred with dusky. 



Iris pink ; bill, legs and feet black. 



Length 14-25 ; wing 6-20 ; tail 8-5 ; tarsus 1-60 ; culmen 1-20. 



The sexes are alike ; the young has rufous-buff shaft stripes to 

 the black crown, a rufous-buff eyebrow, cheeks and ear-coverts and 

 back of the neck, mantle and wing-coverts barred chestnut and 

 black. 



Distribution. From southern Arabia and Socotra southwards 

 through Somaliland and East Africa to the Zambesi and Natal ; 

 it has also been obtained in the Colony. Owing to a certain amount 

 of confusion in regard to the members of this genus it is impossible 

 to give any very exact details regarding the distribution of this 

 species, and it is possible that some of the references given to 

 C. burchelli may apply to this, and vice versa. 



However, an example in the South African Museum alluded to 

 by Layard as having been received from Swellendam in the flesh 

 from Sir Eichard Southey, agrees in every respect with another 

 undoubted example of the present species also in the Museum 

 collection, obtained at Mombasa. It is easily distinguishable from 

 C. burchelli by its brown head, the strong shaft marks bordered by 

 black all over the mantle and sides of the head and by its very 

 distinct whity eyebrow. 



Habits. This species does not appear to differ in this respect 

 from Burchell's Coucal. 



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