Annals of the Transvaal Museum. 
179 
DESCRIPTIONS OF TWO NEW SPECIES OF FLYCATCHERS 
FROM PORTUGUESE SOUTH-EAST AFRICA. 
By Alwin Haagner, Assistant in Transvaal Museum. 
Amongst a small collection of skins sent me in August, 1908, for 
verification and identification by Mr. P. A. Sheppard, of Beira, several 
appeared to be new to science. To make certain of this before describing, 
they were sent to Dr. Reichenow of the Berlin Museum for comparison, 
who very kindly acceded to my request, for which I wish to tender him 
my thanks and due acknowledgment. 
From the locality in which Mr. Sheppard resides, a collection of birds 
has already been made by a trained collector — Mr. C. H. B. Grant of the 
British Museum — and from which several new species have been described, 
so it is all the more noteworthy that, in addition, three new species and 
several new records for South Africa have been discovered by Mr. 
Sheppard. 
I have named the first species after its discoverer, and for the second 
a new genus seems necessary to which I have also attached the name of 
its collector, giving to it the specific name of gunningi, in honour of 
Dr. J. W. B. Gunning, Director of the Transvaal Museum, who is now 
my chief. These birds have since been acquired by the Transvaal Museum. 
BATIS SHEPPARDT, sp. nov. 
(A.) Male. Top of the head and nape grey; a broad black band from 
the bill through the eye, over the cheek, and continued on to the nape ; 
above this, a short, narrow, white line, forming the commencement of an 
eyebrow. Upperside olive brown, the feathers of the mantle and back 
with more or less partly hidden white spots ; rump much greyer. Upper 
tail-coverts black ; throat and sides of neck snow white, followed by a 
broad breast-band of orange-brown, which is continued on either side of the 
body on to the flanks, fading into whitish on the lower portion. Middle 
of the under-surface from the breast-band to the vent (including under 
tail-coverts) white. Axillaries and under wing-coverts for the inner half 
white ; those nearest the edge of the wings black, tipped with white. 
Upper wing-coverts black, the median broadly tipped with white and the 
inner greater-coverts with the outer web also white. Rectrices tipped 
with white, the two outer feathers being also edged with white, very 
narrowly on the inner, broader (about half of the web) on the outer web. 
Length (of skin), 111 mm. ; wing, 60, 75 ; tail, 35 ; tarsus, 18 -5 ; bill 12 ; 
sex, incert. Locality : Mzimbiti, about twenty-three miles from Beira, 
Portuguese South-East Africa. 27th May, 1908. (P. A. Sheppard.) 
I take this bird to be a male, from the pure white chin and throat, 
as the females of both molitor and capensis have a large patch of orange- 
brown on the throat, from both of which, if a female, it differs in the absence 
of this patch. In addition, the red flanks distinguish it from molitor and 
the black upper- wing coverts from capensis. 
(B.) Female. Not quite adult ; collected on the 3rd May, 1908, at the 
same place as the preceding skin. This example has the sides of the face 
