33 2 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
sing most sweetly), there are Bulbuls of the genus Pycnonotus , numerous chats 
(Saxicola), and twenty-five genera of Warblers, including actually a nightingale ! 
—the nightingale of South Europe ( Dauliasphilomela ) which comes as a winter 
visitor; so there is no lack of singing birds. Indeed both Mr. Whyte and 
myself have remarked with emphasis at different times on the beauty of the 
birds’ songs in the hilly regions of British Central Africa. The chorus of 
singing birds is quite as beautiful as anything one hears in Europe, thus quite 
disposing of one of the numerous fictions circulated by early travellers about 
the tropics, to the effect that the birds, though beautiful, had no melodious 
songs, and the flowers, though gorgeous, no sweet and penetrating scents . 1 
The song of the Mlanje thrush ( Turd us milanjensis) is scarcely to be told 
from that of the English bird. Another warbler with a sweet song is the 
Pycnonotus bulbul. » 
Three species of Swallow have been sent home in our collections, one of 
which was new to science and came from the Mlanje plateau. It is interesting 
to note that one of these birds is the common swallow which in its annual 
migrations visits England. Apparently there are five species of Woodpeckers, 
one a South African form, not before found north of the Zambezi, and two 
which have never hitherto been obtained from farther south than Zanzibar . 2 
Three species of Honey-guides ( Indicator and Prodotiscus) are found pretty 
generally over British Central Africa, though one does not always hear the same 
tales there about the persistence of these birds in conducting men to the nests 
of the wild-bee, as is the case in Southern and South-Western Africa, where to 
meet the honey-guide is to be almost certain of obtaining a provision of delicious 
honey . 3 We have found one new species of barbet ( Smilorhis whytei) not 
particularly remarkable for beauty, seeing how gorgeous some barbets can be. 
Amongst Cuckoos there is the southern species of Centropus , with black head, 
chestnut wings and tail, and cream-coloured belly, which is exceedingly common 
and not a nice pet to keep in the aviary because of its cruelty to smaller birds. 
The Centropus cuckoo is remarkable for its musical call, which might be 
expressed in the following notation :— 
3 
-1-1-IS—n 
0 * 
Tu! Tu! tu tu tu tu tu tu Tu! 
This call sounds through all the hot hours of the day in the thick clumps of 
grass or reeds. There are also among the cuckoos two allied to the common 
species found in England, several golden cuckoos and a lovely creature of the 
genus Coccystes which is a beautiful iridescent purple with a white stomach. 
Among our collections there are two species of the Coly or mouse bird 
(Colius). These little creatures have rather doubtful affinities but are related 
to the cuckoos, the turacos, and other Picarian birds ; they have their four toes 
so arranged that they can be turned almost any way, that is to say that the hind 
toe can often be placed in a line with the threeCothers in front, or two of the 
toes can turn backwards. The Colies have a long graduated tail, nearly twice 
1 Captain Shelley, the chief authority on African birds, writes in the preface to his Birds of Africa — 
“ Africa may fairly claim to be the metropolis of the song birds, for the bush resounds with their melody.” 
2 Campothera smithii of South Africa and C. malKerbii and De7idropicus zanzibari of East Africa. 
3 Still the natives do attribute this faculty to the Indicators whose native name is “ nsasu ” or 
“ nsadzu.” The honey-guide, they say, does not'care about the honey but hopes to obtain the young bees 
in the comb. 
