540 Mr. G. L. Bates on the 



The nestling- is coloured much like tie older birds, :ind shcv. s 

 ro sign of barred feathers or of light tips on the wing-coverts. 



Dryoscopus gambensis. 



No. 4368. (^, breeding. Bitye, Aug. 1910. 



No. 410j. ^, breeding. Bitye, Sept. 1910. 



Malaconotus gabonensis. [Ekolat.] (Plate IX. fig. G, 

 egg-) 



Sharpe, Ibis, I'JOS, p. 329. 



No. 4151 shews clearly the change from the immature to 

 the adult plumage, for among the pale feathers of the abdo- 

 men new- ones of a deeper colour arc growing. No. 3851, 

 which is a much younger bird, with the plumage not fully 

 grown, has the feathers of the head pale grey with buff tips, 

 the throat, chest, and upper breast greyish-white, the lower 

 breast, abdomen, and under tail-covcrts pale yellow ; the bill 

 dark horn-coloured. Adult males have the breast somewhat 

 redder than the females. Adults have the iris greyish-white ; 

 the bill black ; the feet pale bluish-grey. 



No. 3871, a breeding male, was shot near its nest, which 

 M'as also brought to me with three eggs in it. This nest was 

 shallow ai;d loosely built of dry vines and small twigs and 

 leaf-petioles, with the top and inside part of blnck rootlets. 

 It was said to have been found on some leaning or crossing 

 cane-like stems in ekotok. The eggs measure 28 to 28-5 ram. 

 in length, and 20*5 mm. in width. No. 281 is figured. 



[The eggs are of a regular oval shape or slightly pointed 

 towards the smaller end, and they are very slightly glossed. 

 The ground-colour varies from pale })ink to pinkish-white. 



The markings, which consist of spots and small blotches of 

 rich maroon and pale i)urplc, though scattered all over the 

 shell, arc chiefly concentrated in a wide irregular zone round 

 the larger end. — O.-G.] 



Laniusm\ckinnom. [Asese.] (Plate IX. figs. 5 & 8, eggs.) 



Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 328 ; Bates, Ibis, 1909, p. 36. 



Several young birds, fledglings or with the plumage hardly 



grown, have the characteristic finely-barred feathers of 



young Shrikes. Throe of these that were females have no 



