684 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
Biittikofer, who did most of his collecting in the drier part of the year, 
says they are very common everywhere in open country; large swarms in the 
air shortly before sunset may be very noisy. He gives no dates, but Chubb 
records two taken at Boporo on March 5, while Currie (Oberholser, 1889, p. 27) 
took specimens at Mount Coffee as late as March 13. After this time until 
November it is doubtless largely absent, and is one of the few species of breeding 
birds that thus absents itself during the rainy season. 
Melittophagus pusillus pusillus (P. L. S. Miiller). Little Bee-eater 
Merops pusillus Miller, Nat. Syst., Suppl., p. 95, 1776: Senegal. 
Small, length about 7 inches; above green, eye-ring light bluish green; a black eyebrow band; 
throat yellow; a black shield on breast edged with reddish brown; belly and under tail-coverts 
rusty, washed with yellowish green; wing feathers rusty with narrow green outer edges; middle 
tail-feathers green, the others rusty, with greenish outer edges and a broad subterminal black band. 
Senegambia to Cameroons. 
We did not meet with this species. Indeed, the only records for Liberia 
are those of Biittikofer, who remarks that it is much less common than the 
preceding species, living in pairs or small groups (probably family parties), 
in open country or about the clearings. It keeps near the ground picking up 
ants and other running rather than flying insects. He mentions that Stampfli 
took one from its nest-hole, which was excavated in the ground of a sandy 
grass field, far off from any water. Others were taken at Schieffelinsville and 
on the Mesurado River at Paynesville. It is possibly migratory like the pre- 
ceding. 
Mellitophagus gularis gularis (Shaw and Nodder). Black Bee-eater 
Merops gularis Shaw and Nodder, Nat. Miscellany, vol. 9, pl. 337, 1798: Sierra Leone. 
Small, length about 8 inches; forehead, rump, streaks on lower breast, the abdomen and under 
tail-coverts bright blue; throat scarlet; a tawny area on middle of wing; elsewhere black. 
Sierra Leone to Cameroons. 
In southeastern Sierra Leone, Kemp (1905) found this to be also a migra- 
tory species, leaving in May and returning in mid-August, therefore making 
a shorter absence than the White-throated Bee-eater. No doubt the same is 
largely true of it in Liberia, for we did not see it until October 24, at Banga, 
where a small party, apparently consisting of an adult pair and three or four 
full-grown young, were seen along the small growth by an open road, close to 
a stream. The adult female and three of the immature birds were taken, the 
latter all males with very small testes. Bittikofer regarded it as uncommon, 
but secured a number of specimens along streams or in open places, such as 
the graveyard at Monrovia. It may occur in flocks of even six to ten birds. 
It does not make the spectacular evolutions of Ae. albicollis, but rather, short 
direct flights, even plunging into the water for insects. 

