521 
Birds of Southern Cameroon. 
(One not preserved) October 13. Plumage worn. 
No. 4046. Imm., November 30. Plumage not worn; 
light tips on some wing-coverts. 
The specimens with worn plumage shewed the effect of 
exposure to the sun and weather on the uncovered tips of 
the remiges. The tip of each of the longer quills was thin 
and transparent up to a point where it was overlapped by the 
next. This fading and thinning of the feather-tips must 
have taken place while the wing was folded, and is evidence 
of long days spent by the bird perched in the open, watching 
for insects. 
Alseonax epulatus. 
Butalis epulatus Cassin, Proc. Ac. Sc. Philad. 1855, p. 326. 
Alseonax fantisiensis Sharpe, Ibis, 1904, p. 622; 1907, 
p. 445 ; Bates, Ibis, 1909, p. 30. 
Alseonax epulatus fantisiensis Beichenow, V. A. ii. p. 456. 
There is no doubt that there are among my birds two 
species of very small Flycatchers, alike in size, but differing 
in the colour of the plumage and very strikingly in the 
colour of the feet and bill. This last character is very 
noticeable in live birds, the one with the bright yellow bill 
and feet, contrasting with the slaty-blue plumage, being 
distinguishable from the other even when seen perched at a 
distance. A large series of specimens of both forms con¬ 
clusively shews that the difference is not one of sex or age. 
A careful reading of Cassirds original description makes it 
certain that the type of Butalis epulatus was a bird of the 
kind afterwards described as A. fantisiensis , that is, the kind 
with the dark feet and bill and the lighter grey back. The 
words of the original description are 4< plumage above 
cinereous ” and “ bill and feet dark.” That Cassin after¬ 
wards received specimens of the other species, and supposed 
the difference to be due to age, appears by his remark in 
a later writing (Proc. Ac. Sc. Philad. 1859, p. 51). In the 
British Museum there are specimens of both species collected 
by Du Chaillu, all originally labelled “ Butalis epulatus Cass.” 
Dr. Sharpe seems to have been led to make the mistake by 
receiving later the dark-legged and light-backed species from 
