the Birds of Ngamiland. 379 



Anthoscopus smithi (Jard. & Selby). 



Anthoscopus smithi Sliarpe, Ibis, 1904, pp. 344-345. 



Anthoscopus minutus Reich, iii. p. 526. 



a,b. c? ? . Molopo River, 3000 ft., 19th April. (Nos. 19, 

 20, 7?. B. TV.) 



Iris dark brown; bill and feet dark grey. 



In his paper on the birds from the District of Deelfontein, 

 in Cape Colony, the late Dr. Sharpe very clearly shewed 

 the differences between A. minutus Shaw and A. smithi 

 Jard., and cleared np the general muddle which had pre- 

 viously existed [cf. ' Ibis,^ 1904, pp. 343-5). Unfortunately, 

 Dr. Reichenow (Vog. Afr. iii. p. 526), writing immediate!}^ 

 afterwards, transferred the name of A. minutus to the bird 

 from the Transvaal, which Sharpe had called A. smithi, 

 while the bird from the Cape Colony, which Sliarpe shewed 

 to be the A. minutus Shaw, Dr. Reichenow has renamed 

 A. m. levaillanti Reich. He has further separated the birds 

 from Damaralaud as A. m. damarensis. I cannot agree 

 with Dr. Reichenow's reasons for making these changes, 

 and think that Sharpe's conclusions were perfectly correct. 

 In any case, the Damaraland birds cannot possibly be dis- 

 tinguished from specimens of A. smithi from the Transvaal. 

 After comparing nearly a dozen specimens from each of 

 these localities, I find that any slight differences in the two 

 series are purely individual. Freshly-moulted birds, such as 

 those in the present collection, are always lighter and greyer 

 on the head and mantle than those in more worn plumage. 



A few small parties of this Penduline Titmouse were met 

 with in the acacia-forest along the Molopo River ; but as we 

 travelled north it seemed to disappear, and was not seen 

 in Ngamiland, where its place is taken, according to Stark, 

 by Andersson's Penduline Tit {A. caroli). 



Laniarius atrococcineus (Burch.). 



Laniarius atrococcineus Stark, ii. p. 31 ; Reich, ii. p. 587. 

 a. S ' Molopo, 3000 ft., 25th April. (No. 504, G. L.) 

 Iris dark brown ; bill and feet black. 



