Birds of Soutliern Cameroon. 627 



A sitting female (No. 3891) was brought in with a nest, 

 whicli the boy found on the top of a decaying stump. The 

 nest was a rather loose mass of rootlets, small stems, and 

 husks of maize, all mixed with fine earth, damp and black. 

 The one egg received (No. 3.21) (the other had been broken) 

 measures 24 X 16 mm. 



[It is of a long oval shape, glossy, and uniform dull 

 olive-green in colour. — W. K. O.-G.] 



Appendix. 

 Two subjects on which observations have been made can 

 he better treated separately here than in scattered remarks 

 under the different species of birds. One refers to some 

 small points in the pterylography of certain groups of 

 Passerine birds ; the other to the kind of insect-food on 

 which the birds live. 



I. The observations on pterylography were mostly made on 

 skins turned inside out, in the process of preparation, 

 but were verified in many cases by examination of the 

 outer side and of nestling birds. 



(1) Space in the ^'saddle" in certain Ploceidse. 



In the genera Ploceus and Malimbus there seems to be 

 always present a small bare or spai'sely-feathered s])ace 

 within the enlarged portion or " saddle " of the spinal- 

 feather tract. This space is usually small ; the largest one 

 observed was in the specimen of Ploceus batesi (No. 4268). 

 In the two examples of C. amaurvcephalus a few small and 

 scattered semiplumes were found upon it. 



Besides the species already mentioned and that figured 

 (text-fig. 21, B, p. 62y), the following have been examined — 

 usually more than one specimen of each — and found to have 

 this space : Ploceus ni(/ricollis, P. ocularius, P. cucullatus, 

 Malimbus malimbicus, M.nitens, M.rubricollis, and M. cassini. 

 Many specimens belonging to other genera of the Ploceidtc 

 were examined and fouud to have no such space in the saddle 

 of the spinal tract ; it is a character confined, so far as my 

 observations go, to the two genera named. 



