19 
Birds of Southern Kamerun. 
which, on dissection, proved to be a female, not yet very 
near the laying time. It must have been providing its 
breeding-hole long beforehand—unless these holes are made 
to live in, and not for breeding only. That these little 
birds do their own excavating there can be no doubt. While 
the bird I have just mentioned was kept a prisoner alive in 
its hole for a few hours, it did some vigorous hewing, trying 
to cut its way out. The wood was half-decayed. 
In the stomachs of birds of this species and the last have 
several times been found, besides fruit, what looked like 
small moth-cocoons. 
738. Verreauxia africana. [Obo’o-Minkomkome.] 
Sharpe, Ibis, 1907, p. 441. 
In my note in 4 The Ibis 3 (1905, p. 93) I spoke of seeing 
one of these tiny Woodpeckers peck the grub out of the 
heart of the stem of a small common endogenous plant. 
That this plant is the usual source of their food is proved by 
the Bulu appellation, for the long word forming the second 
half of the bird's name is that of the plant mentioned, 
while u Obo'o 33 means “ hewer." But I have also seen 
one of these birds pecking at the bark of a tree, making a 
tapping noise almost as loud as that made by an ordinary 
Woodpecker. 
One day a boy brought me a treasure in the shape of a 
section of the end of a small stump, about three inches in 
diameter, green up to about half a foot from the top; and 
in this dry end, which was still hard and little decayed, a 
hole had been bored, in which were two tiny white eggs. He 
brought also the bird caught in the hole, a Verreauxia, which 
I skinned and numbered 2866 ; it was a male, and yet the 
abdomen shewed that it had been sitting. The cavity 
excavated in the dry end of the stump had a diameter of 
about 40 mm. and a depth of about 50 mm., and the 
entrance-hole, round as if bored by an auger, would just 
admit a 12-bore gun cartridge (about 20 mm. in diameter). 
Size of the eggs 14 x 12 mm. and 13*5 x 11*5 mm. 
[Two eggs are of a blunt rounded oval shape, slightly 
glossy and pure white.—O.-G.] 
c 2 
