BIRDS IN UGANDA FORESTS 
5 
through a large forest, when he suddenly exclaimed : ‘ That’s 
the first bird I have seen in the forest.’ Quite so, but what a 
difference when one remains quiet for a few minutes. A moving 
leaf catches one’s eye, then a twitter is heard in a thicket in 
front, and by degrees the place seems full of birds ; but even 
then the undergrowth is too thick to see much, and only now 
and then does one catch a sight of anything. 
However, it is one’s only chance to remain quite quiet, 
and, as I personally prefer to be as comfortable as possible, 
I always take out with me a chair, and usually one or two 
boys who have to remain absolutely quiet, but are useful for 
retrieving. 
One loses quite a large percentage of birds by their dropping 
into thick undergrowth and vanishing — that is the only word 
I can use ; they fall and the spot is marked as carefully as 
possible, but no sign of the bird can be found, and the search 
is at last given up in disgust. 
It should be remembered that birds when shot not unfre- 
quently catch in the undergrowth, and this should be searched 
if the bird is not found on the ground. 
The majority of forest birds are of dull colouration, and so 
we get the sunbirds represented in forests by Cyanomitra 
obscura and the genus Anthothreptes, of which the species 
axillaris, hypodela and tephroloema, are all found in the Budongo 
forest. 
Most of the birds I shall mention here have been obtained 
by me in the above-mentioned forest, which lies in a triangle 
of country between Masindi, Butiaba, and Fajao. 
The tits are represented by Parus funereus (the dusky 
tit-mouse) and Parisoma plumbeum (Hartlaub’s tit-warbler), 
which have the typical tit habit of searching every cranny and 
crevice in bark for their food. These genera, unlike their cousin 
JEgithalus (of which we get the species parvulus in the country), 
prefer to keep to the larger stems of trees and at a reasonable 
height from the ground, whereas my very limited experience 
of parvulus shows that it keeps to the topmost small branches 
of high trees. 
The genus Nigrita (negro finches) is represented by 
schistacea, diabolica, and fusconota. 
