THE BIRDS OF LIBERIA 729 
the grass is burned as at Buluma and Cape Mount. Lowe has collected it on 
the southern coast in January. 
In the adjoining country of Sierra Leone it is common in similar situations 
and Kemp (1905) has also found A. trivialis in February in that country. 
Macronyx croceus croceus Vieillot. Yellow-throated Long-toe 
Alauda crocea Vieillot, Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat., vol. 1, p. 365, 1816: “Java.” 
Slender, 8 inches long; above blackish brown, the feathers edged with olive brown; a black 
crescent across the breast; eyebrow stripe, throat, lower breast, belly, under tail-coverts, and 
tibiae bright yellow; tips of outer tail-feathers white; hind toe very long with an even longer claw. 
Senegambia to Angola. 
The color pattern of this bird is singularly like that of a Meadowlark, and 
the two are further alike in the general nature of their habitat for the long- 
toe inhabits the occasional grassy plains interspersed with clumps of low bushes 
that occur locally along the coastal districts, especially near the northwest 
border as along the Cape Mount and Marfa Rivers and in the country near 
the mouth of the Mesurado River. At these places Biittikofer found it, and 
Stampfli collected three near Paynesville. Whitman of our party also secured 
a single bird near Monrovia but elsewhere we did not meet with it, and it is 
evidently of very local occurrence, limited to places where the conditions it 
requires are present. To the northward of the heavily forested areas, as in 
parts of Sierra Leone, it seems to be commoner. 
PLOCEIDAE Weaver-birds 
Plesiositagra cucullatus cucullatus (8S. Miiller). Black-headed or Palm Weaver 
Oriolus cucullatus S. Muller, Linn. Natursys., Suppl., p. 87, 1776: Senegal. 
Size of a starling, 6.5 inches; male with head black, edged by a chestnut collar; back and 
wings yellow and black, tail olive, breast brownish passing into clear yellow on belly and under 
tail-coverts. Female olive on head, back and tail, throat yellow, belly whitish. Iris red. Sene- 
gambia to Gaboon. 
Of the wonderfully diverse family of weavers, this is the most common and 
conspicuous of Liberian species, highly social in habits, and dwelling in large 
colonies, generally in close proximity to some center of human activity. Biitti- 
kofer notes their fondness for building in a large tree where a pair of Gypo- 
hierax has an eyrie, while Kemp speaks of their colonies in some busy center, 
as the proximity of a railroad station, in Sierra Leone. No doubt this prefer- 
ence for the vicinity of human settlements is of more than chance significance, 
and is a common trait in this group, as shown in Spermestes or even in the 
House Sparrow, now regarded as a Ploceid. It is surely not for protection nor 
is it because of the cleared areas about towns, but probably is only a further 
expression of the social nature of the species. Although Biittikofer speaks of 
occasionally finding colonies far from human habitations, even in forests, we 
did not find any such. Almost every village the length and breadth of the 
land has a colony of varying size usually either in the fronds of a tall oil palm 
towering over the thatched huts, or in the outer branches of a great silk-cotton 
