688 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
its tail turned up and clapped to its back, in an attitude, which, as Dr. Herbert 
Friedmann has informed me, is characteristic of young hornbills of other spe- 
cies, and no doubt is to be correlated with their hole-nesting habits, for other- 
wise there would be no room for the long tail in the cramped nesting cavity. 
Ceratogymna atrata (Temminck). Black-wattled Hornbill 
Bucorvus atratus Temminck, Pl. Col., livr. 94, pl. 558, 1834: Ashanti country. 
Nearly as large as the preceding; black with steely reflections, the tail with all but the central 
pair of feathers white-tipped; naked skin about the eye and the dewlappet, bright blue, its upper 
part with small, scattered black feathers. Female with the head and neck reddish brown, cheeks 
whitish. Liberia to Angola and Semliki. 
This is much the rarer of the two large hornbills, and although we were 
constantly on the lookout for it, did not see it in all our stay. Biittikofer records 
specimens from the St. Paul’s River, Hill Town, and Mt. Olive. Chubb (1905) 
also mentions one from eastern Liberia, and describes it as all black except 
the outer tail-feathers which are broadly tipped with white. Although it is 
said to be of similar habits with the preceding species, it is likely that there 
are significant differences resulting in its greater scarcity. 
STRIGIFORMES 
STRIGIDAE Wood Owls 
Strix woodfordii nuchalis (Sharpe). West African Wood Owl 
Syrnium nuchale Sharpe, Ibis, ser. 2, vol. 6, p. 487, 1870: Fantee. 
Length 14 inches, head without ear-tufts; above chestnut brown mottled with small three- 
cornered white spots, edged with black; below banded with reddish brown and white in irregular 
lines; facial disk mottled reddish brown and white. West Africa to the Lake region. 
This is probably not an uncommon owl in Liberia. The only owl secured 
by Biittikofer on his first visit to the country was an immature male of this 
species near Monrovia, and it was probably the same species of which we saw 
a single bird in that city leaving a thick tree at dusk. Biittikofer’s co-worker, 
Stampfli, later collected three on the Junk and the former on later trips ob- 
tained others, one a young in down at Robertport, as well as an adult shot 
from a mangrove stump by the river. Its stomach contained beetle remains. 
Kemp (1905) regards it as a common owl in Sierra Leone. Probably, this is 
the species meant by Scops senegalensis in Hartlaub’s Birds of West Africa, 
and copied without comment by Biittikofer and Chubb. 
Otus letti (Bittikofer). Lett’s Owl 
Bubo letti Biittikofer, Notes Leyden Mus., vol. 11, pp. 34, 115, pl. 6, 1889: Liberia. 
Medium size; general color rufous, the long ear-tufts white with dark cross-bands in their 
upper part; lower part of facial disks white, bordered below with blackish. Tail rufous with seven 
broad black bars; wings with a large white oval spot on four of the median coverts, the quills 
barred, Liberia to Cameroons and French Congo. 
No other specimens have been taken in Liberia since Biittikofer collected 
the original one, a female, in the Kpwesi country. 

