96 



ON THE GKOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS. 



of the falcon race, called the 

 African crowned eagle (Aquila 

 coroiiatiis, fig. 40.), andj which 

 would seem to typify the AquUa 

 dest)-ticfor of tropical America, 

 as the Senegal fishing eagle re- 

 presents our Osprey. Five other 

 falcons, peculiar to that colony 

 have hut recently been de- 

 scribed ; a proof how little we 

 are acquainted with the ornitho- 

 logy of Western Africa. This 

 region is further characterised 

 as the chief metropolis of the 

 richly coloured bush-shrikes 

 {3Ia'aconotus Sw.) ; the spe- 

 cies called the Barbary, the olive, the black- collared, 

 and several others, being sent from Senegal in consider- 

 able numbers ; while from the same locality we derive the 

 genus Prionops, or ground-shrike; it is the only example 

 yet discovered of this peculiar form, and it represents 

 the American bristle-heads (Dasycephala Sw.) : un- 

 like all other shrikes, it seeks its food upon the 

 ground. 



(135.) Among the perching order of birds, there 

 are numerous other intertropical families, or rather 

 genera, entirely unknown in Northern Africa. The 

 Drongo shrikes {Edolms Cuv.) are not uncommon 

 towards Sierra Leone, where also the caterpillar-catchers 

 {Ceblepyris Cuv.), and more particularly the bristle- 

 necked thrushes of the genus Brachypns Sw., have 

 been discovered. We here find the beautiful sun-bird 

 {Cinnyris Cuv.), representing, under the same degrees 

 of latitude, the humming-birds of America. Three 

 birds of gi-eat beauty — the Senegal, the long-tailed, and 

 the chalybeate sun-birds — are particularly common'; 

 while several others, scarcely inferior in brilliancy of 

 plumage, have been received from the western coast. 

 The richly coloured rollers of these countries have no 



