544 
Mr. G. L. Bates on the 
Nos. 3005, b008, 3055, 3558, 3939, 4258. ? adult. 
Nos. 3576, 3600. $ young. 
No. 4257. S young. 
All collected at Bitye. 
In my former paper I gave evidence for believing that this 
species has a perfectly black female (of course, the words in 
that paper, at the top of p. 41, in both sexes ” should be 
struck out). I have now further evidence of this fact. All 
the six black female birds enumerated above were shot in 
company with birds that looked like males of this species. 
No. 4258 was killed by the same shot as No. 4257, a young 
male M. corunatus , and Nkole, who shot them, thought the 
perfectly black bird was feeding that with the red crown. 
An interesting fact has been discovered about the 
immature plumage in this species ; that is, that young 
females have red crowns like adult males, but not of so bright 
a colour. I ascertained the sex of the birds myself (as I 
always do) and have no doubt that both No. 3576 and 
No. 3600 were females. The former (the younger of the two) 
has all the feathers of the crown and forehead dull red; the 
latter has only a few red feathers on the crown, and is nearly 
adult. The young male looks much like the young female, 
but has black feathers among the red. 
Malimbus cassini. [Nga'a-minkan.] 
Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 352; Bates, Ibis, 1909, p. 39. 
Nos. 3288 S & 3298 ? . Assobam. 
Nos. 4276 adult; 3799 ? & 4538 J immature. All 
Bitye. 
The perfectly black female No. 3298 was shot in the same 
place and among the same company of birds,—in the trees 
over my camp at Assobam—as No. 3288, which is M. cassini; 
this fact, and the fact that no male M. coronatus was shot at 
Assobam, is the only reason for considering it the female 
of the present species ; for it is exactly like females of 
M. coronatus. It will be remembered that at Efulen I 
shot a perfectly black female at the same nest with a male 
M. cassini . 
