THE BIRDS OF LIBERIA 715 
Alethe poliocephala castanota Sharpe 
Alethe castanota Sharpe, Cat. Afr. Birds, 1871, p. 20: Fanti. 
_Length 6 inches; above, body and wings chestnut; crown brownish gray, eyebrow stripe 
whitish ; below buffy, washed at sides with yellowish brown; chin and belly white; feet yellowish. 
Sierra Leone to Gold Coast. 
We did not meet with this thicket-haunting species, but Biittikofer found it 
at Soforé Place, Schieffelinsville, and Mt. Gallilee, in dense growth at edges of 
clearings, keeping close to the ground. 
Alethe diademata (Bonaparte). Chestnut-crowned Thrush 
Bessonornis diadematus Bonaparte, Conspect. Avium, vol. 1, p. 302, 1850: Guinea. 
Size of a small thrush, 7 inches; crown orange-chestnut, back and wings olive brown; tail 
black, the outer feathers tipped with white on the inner vanes; cheeks and sides of neck and throat 
gray, nearly forming a collar on breast, rest of lower parts white. Portuguese Guinea to Togo. 
This is a bird seldom seen on account of its extreme wariness and the difficulty 
of penetrating the dense thickets in the forest where it lives. Buttikofer notes 
two in high forest near Schieffelinsville and an adult and young in low forest 
near Hill Town, while Lowe secured a specimen at Nana Kru in very dense 
bush. In addition to a specimen from the Du River, we secured a female and 
downy young at Paiata, October 5th. Its nest was in a hole in the side of a 
dead stump about four or five feet from the ground in a swampy place among 
bushes. The nest was made of fine black rootlets and green moss, lined with 
more rootlets and a leaf or two of mimosa. The three nestlings were still very 
small and sparsely covered with fine sooty down, which, as they cuddled together 
in the nest, fluffed out to cover them completely. Their skin was dark and the 
corners of their mouths white. After discovering the nest, and seeing no sign of 
the parent birds, I waited in the shelter of a bush some yards away for over half 
an hour before the old ones appeared, but so wary and suspicious were they, 
that it was some while before one ventured to visit the nest for a second; in spite 
of my concealment and motionless posture, they were quite aware of my pres- 
ence, and kept hidden among the dense foliage near the ground for a long while, 
flitting back and forth before affording a chance to shoot. 
NECTARINIIDAE Sun-birds 
Cinnyris superbus (Shaw). Chestnut-bellied Sunbird 
Certhia superba Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. 8, pt. 1, p. 193, 1811: Malimba, French Congo. 
A large species, about 5.5 inches long; male with top of head steely blue, rest of upper side 
iridescent green; wings and tail black; throat iridescent violet; belly and under tail-coverts dark 
chestnut red, the sides and middle of abdomen more or less black. Female dark gray-brown above 
washed with olive green, below dark yellowish gray. Gold Coast to Angola. 
This large and handsome sunbird does not seem to have been previously re- 
corded for Liberia. Coolidge shot one of a pair seen perched in a low tree near 
Gbanga and I took an adult male with enlarged testes, October 24, at Banga. 
Comparison with Cameroon specimens reveals no essential differences. 
