316 Birds collected by Mr. C. Grant in South Africa. 
is sharp and rather harsh, usually uttered from the top of a 
grass-stalk or stick. I have not discovered the nest. 
The soft parts are:—Trides hazel; bill dark horn- 
coloured, lower mandible slaty in parts; legs and toes brown.] 
292. Sphenceacus natalensis. 
Z. Sibudeni, Nov., Jan. (2) ; Tv. Wakkerstroom, Apl. 
( 1 ). 
[“ Gauge” of Zulus. 
This species was only observed in Natal and Zululand and 
the South-Eastern Transvaal. In habits, &c., it exactly 
resembles S. africanus. The soft parts are also the same.] 
Sphenceacus transvaalensis. 
C. Grant, Bull. B. O. C. xxi. 1908, p. 92. 
Tv. Woodbush Hills, Nov., Dec. (type a J', Nov. 11, 
1905, and 4 others). One nest with two eggs taken in the 
Woodbush Hills, Dec. 14-th. 
I can hardly regard this species as distinguishable from 
S. natalensis , which it replaces in the North-East Transvaal. 
The crown is perhaps a shade darker rufous and the lower 
parts are more ashy and less fulvous, but it is founded on very 
fine distinctions. Of the Transvaal examples in the British 
Museum one from Swaziland is distinctly referable to S. natal¬ 
ensis ; two others, one from Rustenburg and one from the 
Swart Ruggens, also in the Rustenburg District, may perhaps 
be united to the present race. The eggs closely resemble 
those of the Cape species. 
[I only found this Grass-bird on the hill-sides in the 
Woodbush Hills, where it frequented the long grass and 
rough herbage on the edges of the forests. In general habits, 
call, and flight it resembles other members of the genus. 
It breeds during the summer season, and I took the nest, con¬ 
taining two slightly incubated eggs, on the 14th of December, 
1905. The nest, which was composed of fine grass with a few 
dead leaves interwoven on the outside, was cup-shaped and 
placed in the fork of a shrub in thick vegetation at the 
edge of forest; it was within a foot of the ground. Only 
the hen bird was observed, and she was secured.] 
[To be continued.] 
