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more males than females. The young birds remain long with the parents. They frequently fly 
during the day at great altitudes, soaring like birds of prey in circles above the tree-tops. But during 
the pairing-season they exhibit the greatest excitement—when they rise from time to time obliquely 
into the air with violent flaps of their wings, which they then half close and allow themselves to 
descend to the tree-tops, to again at once ascend, and thus they continue for some time, and then 
glide, uttering at intervals a mournful and plaintive cry dreo-dreo, at the same time pufling out their 
throats and erecting the feathers on their heads. 
“ These Hollers are more especially to be met with on the skirts of the forest and on the bush- 
covered plains, where they hunt after reptiles, insects, grasshoppers, and especially caterpillars, which 
form their food. They are not shy, and are easily shot when perched on a bough. Towards each 
other they are sociable, and should one be shot down his companions flutter round the hunter as if to 
rescue their friend, hovering at a short distance from the ground or perching on a tree close by, so 
that one can, if one wishes to do so, kill one after the other, almost to the last, without their being 
scared away by the reports of the gun. When wounded they puff out the skin of the head, erect 
their feathers, and try to defend themselves by vigorous strokes of the bill, and then assume a defiant 
and wild appearance. 
“ They nest in holes in trees, and it seems that their eggs are pure white. 
“ In the west the Cuckoo-Eoller is called Kirbmho (that is, ‘ the one who soars ’), and in the east 
Vorondreo (literally the dreo-bird). 
“The Sakalavas, impressed by the mournful and languishing song of this bird, prepare a love- 
potion from certain parts of its body, such as the eye and the wing-feathers. We, on several occasions, 
lost some fine skins of this bird on account of the carriers having taken some of the feathers, without 
permission, for this purpose.” 
In a letter just received, the Hev. J. Wills sends me the following note respecting this 
species:—“ The native name indicates its call, Vbrona (bird) dreo, this latter word being the cry 
of the bird as it flies high above the trees, circling about, the e having the sound of the French e. 
The cry is a loud and long-continued re-oo, re-oo, re-oo. A native, who tells me that he has 
taken the eggs and young from the nest, affirms that the nest was on the ground under an over¬ 
hanging bank, being just a little dried grass loosely spread. The eggs are three in number, but, he 
says, one is always addled, and he added that these birds feed their young on grasshoppers, lizards, 
chameleons, &c.” 
Messrs. Hoch and E. Newton remark (Ibis, 1863, p. 166) that “It has a peculiar habit 
of playing in the air above the forest for some time over the same place, ascending almost per¬ 
pendicularly, as it were by a jump, to a great height, and descending again in a curve nearly to the 
top of the trees, by almost closing its wings, at the same time uttering a whistle so like an Eagle’s 
that it was for a long time doubted by us whether the bird that performed this wonderful freak was 
not a Haptorial. However, after having several times watched it with our glasses, we satisfied ourselves 
that it was this species. Whilst one bird was thus playing, another would frequently answer its cry 
from a tree hard by.” 
I have figured the adult male only of this species, as the adult female differs from that 
of Le'ptosomus gracilis merely in being darker and in having the tail brown and not pale 
chestnut-red. 
The specimens figured and described are in my own collection. 
p 
