Birds of Gazaland, Southern Rhodesia. 55 
with a view to disguise than as an essential portion of the 
nesting-material. The nest proper consisted of a thin but 
neatly-rounded cup (2°5 inches in diameter and 1°5 deep), 
of somewhat coarse twigs---largely those of the thorny 
climbing acacia—and one or two fine grass-stems and roots. 
The bird sat very persistently on every occasion on which I 
visited the nest, not leaving until the sapling was shaken. 
There was one egg only, measuring exactly 1 inch by 
8°5 lines, slightly pyriform in shape, dull white in ground- 
colour, densely mottled with underlying grey freckles, and 
less densely with spots, streaks, and large blotches of two 
shades of brown. Except that it lacked anything in the 
shape of soft or delicate marbling, it reminded me some- 
what of the egg of a Nightjar. What the full clutch is 
I am unable to say; certainly, in this case, no more would 
have been laid, for the bird’s ovary contained no advanced 
eggs. In the case of the second nest, found shortly 
afterwards, the sapling was again too thin to scale, and on 
my return later with a saw I found that the nest had been 
destroyed by baboons. In material and construction, even 
to the lichen-drapery, it much resembled the first. 
Out of ten stomachs of this bird examined two con- 
tained small fruits only; three, fruits and insects, the 
former preponderating in each case and including a small 
bean; four, insects only—an earwig, small larve (both 
coleopterous and lepidopterous), beetles and other small 
insects; and the tenth, ni/. These birds come readily 
enough to a trap baited with a piece of guava. The bill 
is black, the iris umber, while the legs and feet are medium 
greyish-brown, with yellow soles; these vary, however, to 
some extent, having been dark grey-brown in one of my 
specimens, in another pale brownish-grey, and in a third 
(the Mafusi specimen) vandyk-brown. The length of the 
bird in the flesh varies from 7°75 to 8:12 inches. In 
the young bird the white stripes on the ear-coverts are 
dull and inconspicuous; the bill is sepia-coloured ; the iris 
of a very deep brown-sepia; while the legs are light dusky 
grey, the joints between the plates broad and whitish ; the 
