204 SIR HARRY II. JOHNSTON ON [Mar. 21, 



this small brown vulture is extremely common and abundant in 

 most pai'ts of Sierra Leone, I have never seen it anywhere on the 

 coast of Liberia between Monrovia and Cape Palmas. 



The Gi'ey PaiTot with a red tail is not indigenous to any part 

 of Libei-ia. It is frequently to be rnet with in the houses of the 

 natives on the coast, because it is brought there from the Gold 

 Coast or the Congo by steamers. But the indigenous Fsittacios 

 is P. timneh, which is without the red tail, and is said not to be 

 able to learn to talk. The grey of its plumage is browner. The 

 tail sometimes seems to be a purple or an almost violet colour. 

 The true Grey Parrot does not seem to make its appearance as a 

 wild bird in West Africa until the Gold Coast is reached. This 

 tendency towards a purple tail reappears in the variety of the 

 triie Grey Parrot which is found on the Poi'tuguese island of 

 Pi-incipe, in the Gulf of Guinea. Here also the plumage of the 

 body is tending towards purple-grey, and is much darker in tone 

 than the pale ash-grey of the ordinary type. In the western 

 Congo and Angola, the Grey Parrot is gradually developing into a 

 type which will be in time scarlet all over. On the island of 

 Pi'incipe it seems to be evolving a purple form ; while in the 

 Timneh Pari'ot we seem to have a connecting-link between the 

 genus Fsittacus and the brown- grey- yellow- and green parrots of 

 the genus Pceocephahcs. 



The Liberian Hornbills belong to the genei'a Bycanistes, Cera- 

 iogymnct, Lophoceros, and Ortholophus. This selection includes 

 the smallest of all the Hoi'nbills, Loplioceros camurus, and the 

 very eccentric-looking Black Hornbill and Elate Hornbill, the 

 females of which have a bright chestnut head and neck, whilst 

 the plumage in the same part of the males is black. Apparently 

 the only form of Ortholophus which has been collected in Liberia 

 is the smaller of the two species — leucolophus — in which the tips 

 of the secondaries and primaries are not white, while thei-e is a 

 slight difference in the distribution of greyish-white about the 

 cheeks. The larger and handsomer Ortholophus alhocristatus is 

 stated by Elliot (on, apparently, the authority of the type- 

 specimens, supposed to have been collected by Cassin at Sierra 

 Leone) to inhabit North- West as well as West and Central Africa 

 (Niger, Cameroons, Congo, and Angola). Elliot remai-ks on the 

 curious occurrence of Ortholophus leucolophus in the middle of 

 this range, as it were, in the countries of Liberia and the Gold 

 Coast. So fai- as I can asceitain, however, no specimens of 

 0. alhocristatus have been obtained from regions west of Lagos 

 since Elliot's monograph on the Hornbills was written. Is it 

 not possible, therefore, that Cassin or his collector may have 

 made a mistake in asciibing theii- specimens of alhocristatus to 

 Siei-ra Leone ? May they not really have been brought from 

 much further east on the West Coast of Africa ? It would be a 

 veiy curious point in disti-ibution if alhocristatus should be found 

 in Siei-ra Leone, and not re-occur again in Western Africa till 

 the Niger was reached. 



Amongst the birds collected by Mr. Reynolds on the St. Paul's 



