APPENDIX 
331 
Wood-Shrikes 
Helmet-Shrikes— Sigmodus. Characterised by tufted heads and 
wattles around the eye; woodland birds of soft floppy 
flight, recalling that of the Siberian Jay. This, again, is a 
purely African genus of half-a-dozen species (p. 252). 
Drougos— Dicrurus, of which the fork-tailed species, D. musicus, 
is figured and described at p. 18. 1 
In spite of the abundance of Shrikes, I never chanced to 
notice their “ shambles ” in East Africa. 
Tits ( Paridce ) 
These also form a numerous group, fourteen species being 
recognised as peculiar to the African Continent—thereby break¬ 
ing through the rigid bounds of “ Ethiopia ” in zoological 
geography. 
Tits noticed in the forests of the Mau were dark in colour— 
almost black. This we attributed to their gloomy environment 
—almost a twilight at midday. But those sombre colours 
appear to be more or less characteristic of other African 
Paridse not restricted to dense forest. 
SlJNBIRDS 
This is a thoroughly tropical—or rather, Ethiopian—group, 
comprising 80 to 100 species, many of which are typical of 
British East Africa. Bedecked in gorgeous hues—crimson and 
purples, greens and scarlet, blues, gold and yellow, each feather 
of which has a metallic lustre—these tiny creatures glance like 
jewels in the sunshine as they dart from flower to flower, alight¬ 
ing for an instant to pick off insects and aphides with curved, 
creeper-like bills. One perches above a bloom, bending forward 
to a perpendicular position to explore the calyx beneath; while 
another hangs, back downwards, like a tit, below its selected 
flower. 
Towards the end of July, when the brilliancy of some blooms 
1 Mr. Ogilvie-Grant tells me that Dicrurus should properly have been 
placed next to Lamprocolius at p. 335. 
