II. 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



By R. Bowdler Sharpe, F.L.S., F.Z.S., etc. 

 Senior Assistant, Zoological Department, British Museum. 



(Plates I., II.) 



The Collection of Birds made by the late Mr. Frank Oates 

 was formed by that gentleman with the greatest care, and 

 it is seldom that it falls to the lot of the naturalist to 

 examine a series of birds in which the particulars of 

 capture are so carefully noted on each specimen as in the 

 present instance. For this reason alone, therefore, the 

 collection is of great importance ; but, besides this, it 

 gives without doubt a very fair idea of the avifauna of 

 the parts of the Transvaal and the Matabele Country 

 through which Mr. Oates travelled. Of the birds of the 

 former Mr. Ayres has published several accounts in 

 recent volumes of the ' Ibis,' and in the same journal for 

 1874 Mr. T. E. Buckley gave a list of the birds met with 

 by him on his journey through the Matabele Country, where 

 he travelled for some part of the time with Mr. Oates ; 

 but as Mr. Buckley did not get beyond Tati, it was 

 left for Mr. Oates to give us the first account of the birds 

 which are to be met with between that place and the 

 Zambesi. His untimely death was a great loss to science, 

 for, after his long journey to that river, he had at last 

 reached a terra fere incognita to the ornithologist, where 

 there is little doubt that further researches would have 

 crowned his efforts with the discovery of many new and 

 important facts. The avifauna of the Zambesi region is 



