625 
Birds of Southern Cameroon. 
the same colour ; in others, again, the markings are browner 
and less bright. One specimen has large blotches of dull 
purplish-grey underlying the small mottlings, and in two 
very blunt eggs there is a distinct zone or cap of deep 
chestnut-maroon surrounding the apex at the larger end.— 
W. R. O.-G.] 
Turdinus batest. [Akalat.] (Plate XIT. fig. 5, egg.) 
Sharpe, Ibis, 1902, p. 94 ; 1908, p. 117. 
This is a Turdinus , not an Alethe as Reichenow has it. 
This is evident, not only from its appearance and habits, 
which are like those of the other species of Turdinus , but 
from the structural characters given in the ‘ Vogel Afrikas/ 
for the 5th, 6th, and 7th primary-quills are the longest and 
the 4th is considerably shorter. 
A young bird (No. 3069) with the plumage not grown 
has no spots on the plumage like the young of Alethe ; some 
of the wing-coverts are of a scarcely discernible lighter 
shade at the tips; the chest is dark brown, and the feathers 
of the breast and abdomen have dark brown edges, forming 
slight cross-bars. 
Two sitting females (Nos. 4001 and 4128) were brought 
with their nests and eggs. The nests were merely loose 
piles of dead leaves with a few stems and rootlets, said to 
have been found on the ground in the forest ; each contained 
two eggs. Those of one clutch (Nos. 406, 407) were 
extremely long (20 x 16 and 24’5 x 15’5 mm.), and when the 
small embryo had been removed from each there came out 
of the smaller end of the egg another opaque mass which 
may have been a second abortive embryo. The other eggs 
(Nos. 455, 456) both measure 235 x 17 mm. 
[These eggs are of a long oval shape, very slightly glossed, 
and have the ground-colour white or pale pinkish-white, 
with small spots and irregular blotches and markings of 
dull maroon and dark purplish-grey scattered all over the 
shell. In two specimens they are more numerous towards 
the larger end and form an irregular cap or zone.—W. R„ 
O.-G.] 
