618 Lieut. C. G. Fincli-Davies on [Ibis, 



feed almost entirely on insects, and I have never found bird 

 or mammal remains. On one occasion, very early in the 

 morning, in fact just after daybreak, I came across a party 

 of five of these birds, probably the two parents with their 

 young. They were hunting, slowly, over a grassy flat near a 

 patch of forest. Their manner of hunting rather reminded 

 me of that of some of the Kestrels, especially Erythropus 

 amurensis. Flying slowly along, head to wind, in more or 

 less of a line^ not very high above the ground, they kept on 

 settling on the ground and picking up something. After 

 watching them for some time I succeeded in shooting one, 

 and found its crop to contain a mass of small grasshoppers 

 and a single Mantis. This species has a very strong musky 

 smell, which is apparent in skins for some time. One or 

 two immature birds I have shot have been swarming with 

 lice. 



Judging by a number of skins I have examined, this 

 species seems, in some cases at least^ to pass through an 

 intermediate stage of plumage between the young and the 

 adult. In the Transvaal Museum there is an immature 

 specimen showing feathers belonging to three distinct 

 plumages. The first and second of these are very similar 

 as regards the colouring of the upper parts. In the first 

 the under parts are white, marked on the throat, breast, 

 and abdomen with dark brown streaks and drop-shaped 

 spots ; on the flanks these markings assume a more bar- 

 like shape. In the next plumage the throat and breast 

 are white, marked with broad almost spade-shaped spots of 

 pale rufous brown, the spots being so large that they 

 predominate over the white. The flanks, abdomen, and 

 under tail-coverts are buffy white, with heart-shaped spots 

 of rufous brown outlined with darker brown. From this 

 stage the bird moults into the adult plumage. There is 

 some difference in tint in the colouring of the upper surface 

 in adults; some are of so dark a grey as to be almost black, 

 others much paler. I have seen certain specimens, notably 

 a male from King William's Town, in which the bars on the 

 under surface, instead of being rufous edged with duik 



