604 
Mr. G. L. Bates on the 
were exactly alike in every particular: tliey were rather 
rude, slight, shallow cups, composed of dry leaf-petioles, 
hits of leaves and bark, with a slight lining of the rootlets of 
an epiphytic orchid, such as hang on trees. Both had the 
rims smeared over with the dried fruits upon which these 
birds feed, which had doubtless passed through the sitting 
bird’s body. The bits of egg-shell found in the later nest, 
and sticking to the bird’s breast-feathers, were thickly 
speckled and spotted with dark brown, the light yellowish 
ground-colour shewing but little. 
Pycnonotus gabonensis. [Nkwe’ele or Kwalawata.J 
(Plate XI. figs. 1, 2, 4, & 5, eggs.) 
Sharpe, Ibis, 1904, p. 638; 1907, p. 463; Bates, Ibis, 
1905, p. 98 ; 1909, p. 60. 
This bird may be called homely , using the word both in its 
good and in its uncomplimentary sense. Though not a pretty 
bird, it is a most attractive ODe on account of its ways, and 
excepting the Common Weavers and the Sparrows, which 
thrust themselves on the notice of mankind, it is the most 
familiar bird of the country. A pair repeatedly raised a 
brood, or sometimes only one chick, near my house, building 
in the thick centre of the foliage of a palm-tree, from which 
I had exterminated the Weavers. I have yet another 
illustration of the theme already spoken on, that the Nkwe’ele 
is a versatile bird. Though neither it nor its kindred are 
formed for running or hopping on the ground, and I have 
never seen another Bulbul on the ground, yet on two 
or three days I observed a pair of Nkwe’ele hopping 
along in front of ray house like Sparrows, but awkwardly 
and with evident effort. There is more than mere fancy in 
the statement that these birds try to do everything they see 
other birds doing. They certainly have more than ordinary 
avian intelligence. 
Nests of Pycnonotus gabonensis are a little deeper than 
those of the species of Phyllostrophus described, and rather 
better constructed; they are usually made of tomentose 
leaf petioles or weed-stems with finer fibres inside. They are 
found on all sorts of wild and cultivated plants and bushes 
