513 
Birds of Southern Cameroon. 
under Astur toussenellii above, p. 493). In the .stomachs of 
birds shot while so engaged, I have more than once found, 
driver-ants that had been swallowed incidentally, attached 
to the bodies or their insect prey, for a driver-ant never lets 
go its hold. This, I believe, furnishes an explanation of the 
statement made in Mr. Pycraft’s 4 History of Birds 5 (p. 406) — 
authority uot given—that Halcyon cyanoleucus subsists on 
ants. The food of all species of Halcyon, so far as I have 
observed, is beetles, grasshoppers, cockroaches, small frogs, 
&c. ;in the stomach of one I found a whip-scorpion. These 
are captured in a manner similar to that in which the more 
typical Kingfishers catch fishes ; that is, by a swift arrow-like 
plunge, the heavy bill serving as the arrow-head and trans¬ 
fixing or striking the prey. Once, when sitting in a native 
house, I heard something repeatedly strike the roof of 
palm-leaf thatch with force, as if a small stone had hit it. 
1 found that the noise was caused by a Halcyon (I do not 
know of which species) that was darting from a tree near 
by upon the cockroaches that crawled out on the roof. 
Halcyon kadi us. 
Sharpe, Ibis, 1904, p. 608 ; 1907, p. 429 ; Bates, Ibis, 
1909, p. 23. 
Of all the species of Halcyon , this is more strictly a 
bird of the forest than any other, and is naturally the one 
most often met with in our forest region. It was found 
also at Assobam. It has a loud note, quite different from 
the cries made by the other species. 
Nos. 4497 and 4198 were a pair of nestlings said to have 
been taken from a hole in an earthen ants 5 nest made in a 
tree by the big black species that bite, the same kind in 
which the hole of the Ko-nkae was found (see notes on 
Agapornis pullaria above, p. 496). The bills are black with 
red tips, a white egg-tooth still persisting. The culmen 
measures only 21 mm., though the birds are large enough 
to have the wing-quills three-fourths grown. The wings in 
these birds were seen to be eutaxic. 
Another clutch of two eggs of this species was found 
and brought to me along with the bird, No. 3941, a male, 
