NESTING OF SOME E. AFRICAN BIRDS 
57 
The interior in each case was neatly lined with flakes of 
plant-down, and the external materials consisted of lichens, 
roots, and grasses, etc. 
The eggs were elongate in shape ; the average size of 
four being 16*6 x 11*8 min., max. 17*1 x 11*8 and 16-8 x 11*5, 
min. 16 x 11*2. 
They were so thickly and uniformly covered with fine 
freckling and marbling of light grayish-brown, which varied 
from a warmer to a colder tint, that the ground colour of 
greenish- white, pale purplish, or olive-gray was almost obscured. 
Compared with the eggs of C. falkensieini they were decidedly 
darker and more uniform in their markings. 
The two nests of C. falkensteini were built in shrubs three 
feet from the ground and were similar in shape to those 
already described, but rather larger and more loosely built, 
about 5-5 J in. in height. Both nests showed a good deal of 
vegetable down externally as well as in the lining. The eggs 
were elongate in shape, four, averaging in size 16*1 X 10-8 
min., max. 16*4 x 11 and 16-1 x 11*2, min. 16 x 10’5. 
The ground colour was grayish-white, freckled and marbled 
with grayish-brown, the markings tending to form a cap at 
the larger end. They were conspicuously lighter than the 
eggs of C. mediocris. Fresh eggs were taken on October 22 
and incubated eggs on December 26. 
Two nests of Turdus elongensis, Jackson, were also found 
by Mr. Congreve. The first contained two much incubated 
eggs (of which one was exhibited) on October 22, and the 
second contained two eggs which hatched out on the 
same day. 
The egg, which is not included in Nehrkorn’s * Katalog ’ or 
in the British Museum collection, is like the common 
blackbird’s in appearance, having a light greenish-blue ground 
freckled and blotched with red-brown. Size 29*2 X 21*1 min. 
