588 
Mr. G. L. Bates on the 
supposed that it might he due to age, and that the young 
birds lost the yellowish-olive colour and became quite grey 
before moulting into the black plumage of adults. Though 
my first specimens supported this view, since only grey ones 
were found with new black feathers appearing, another 
specimen subsequently obtained and having much of the 
yellow tinge was also moulting into adult plumage. It 
can therefore only be said that immature birds of this 
species vary greatly in colour. A comparison with the 
well-known immature plumage of P. nigerrimus suggests 
that young birds of P. maxivelli with yellowish-olive in 
their plumage shew a reversion to a type of plumage more 
like the young of the former species. 
All my specimens were shot with bow and arrow, after 
they had gone to roost, in flocks, in the tall grass. If, as is 
probable, this bird nests in colonies, like P , nigerrimus , it 
must choose nesting-trees in retired and out-of-the-way 
places. 
Amblyospiza saturata. [Ko-esong.] 
Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 353; Bates, Ibis, 1909, p. 48. 
Many more examples have now been obtained of this 
species, which seems sufficiently distinct, though closely 
allied to both A. capitalba , from Upper Guinea, and 
A. melanonota, from the Lake district. 
One immature male (No. 3784) has a plumage scarcely 
differing from that of the female, but the differences are 
nevertheless interesting, since they foreshadow the most 
marked characters of the adult male plumage, namely, the 
white forehead, chestnut head, and the white wing-spots. 
The immature male has a tinge of chestnut mixed with 
white on the forehead, and a little greyish-white on the 
outer webs of the primary-quills. A male not yet breeding 
(No. 1415) has a plumage like that of the adult, but the 
light margins on the feathers are wider and more numerous, 
and the throat and crop are blackish, not clear chestnut. 
This seems to be an intermediate plumage. 
No. 3879 is a bird wffiich I do not understand. Both in its 
