Birds of Southern Cameroon. 495 



caught it with his hands, as it was trying to fly off with a 

 fowl that was too heavy lor it. 



LOPKOSTRIX LETTI. 



Rcichenow_, V. A. i. p. 663. 



Scops lett'i Sharpe, Ibis, 190i, pp. 104, 604; 1907, p. 427. 



No. 3291. $ ad. Assobain, Dec. 1908. 



No. 3292. ? young. „ 



These two examples were killed at one shot ; there were 

 tliree sitting on a limb together. The old bird had in its 

 stomach the hard parts of brightly-coloured beetles. 



Not only is the colour of the plumage of the young oue 

 very different from that of the adult, being of a pale rust- 

 colour with white edges to the feathers, and about the face 

 entirely white ; but the colour of the iris is bright yellow, 

 while in the adult it is brownish-yellow. The white face and 

 yellow eyes would help to make the young Owl visible in the 

 darkness of a hollow tree. 



The plumage of this young Owl is remarkable on account 

 of its structure as well as its colour. It is a " mesoptyle " 

 plumage, the feathers being somewhat downy, yet having 

 shafts, and bearing on their tips many of the first down- 

 feathers, as in the illustration of " mesoptyle feather of 

 Tawny Owl" in Pycraft's ^History of Birds,' p. 270. 

 Mr. Pycraft has pointed out to me a further peculiarity, in 

 that the rectrices, which belong to the "" teleoptyle," or final 

 plumage, bear, each on its tip, a mesoptyle tail-feather. 



Glaucidium pycrafti. (Plate VII.) 



Glaucid'ium pycraft I Bates, Bull.-B. O. C. vol. xxvii. p. 85. 



No. 4153. $ . Bitye, R. Ja, March 26, 1910. 



Adult male. Head dark greyish-brown ; back and upper 

 surface of the wings dark umber-brown ; feathers of the nape 

 and sides of the neck each with a broad white subterminal 

 bar, together forming a white-spotted collar ; lores and a 

 short superciliary stripe white. Quills blackish, with 

 umber-brown bars extending across both webs and becoming 

 whitish-buff towards the margins of the inner webs; the outer- 

 most primary shorter than any of the others. Tail-feathers 



