On the Birds of Southern Cameroon. 479 



XVIII. — Further Notes on the Birds of Southern Cameroon. — 

 Part I. By G. L. Bates, M.B.O.U. With Descriptions 

 of the Eggs by W. R. Ogilvie-Gkant, M.B.O.U. 



(Plates VII.-IX. and Text-figs. 13 & 14.) 



The collection on which these notes are based was made 

 from August 1908 to December 1910, mostly at my place of 

 residence at Bitye, near the western bend of the River Ja (see 

 map, ' Ibis/ 1908, p. 558) . But a number of specimens were 

 obtained on two trips further east. One trip — to mention 

 the shorter one first — was made in January 1910 to a place 

 perhaps seventy-five miles down the Ja from Bitye, called 

 Esamesa. Though only a few days were spent on this expe- 

 dition, two birds that I had not collected elsewhere were 

 obtained, one being Apalis jacksoni, liitherto known only in 

 the Lakes-district of Africa. The longer trip occupied part 

 of November and all of December 1908 and part of January 

 1909. The part of this time not spent on the road was passed 

 at a camp near Assobam, in the Njiem or Zima Country, 

 a place a little to the north of Bizara which is marked on 

 the map referred to. My camp was in a bit of the forest 

 between the village and the small River Bumba, the principal 

 tributary of the Ja. 



The number of species of which specimens were collected 

 at Assobam was about a hundred and twenty, and a few more 

 were shot or were plainly seen so as to be known. These 

 include some forms of wide range in Africa, and many West 

 Coast species that had already been found by Emin and 

 others in Central Africa, or later by the Ruwenzori Expe- 

 dition or by Mr. Douglas Carruthers on the Upper Congo. 

 But they include also forty-one species hitherto known, so 

 far as I can learn, only from the West Coast, the range of 

 which is thus extended 150 miles further into the interior of 

 Africa than before, for Assobam is about that distance east 



