186 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
and enthusiastic interest in it, and devoted much of his time to collecting when 
not engaged in the photographic work of the Expedition. In Liberia some 
birds are virtually confined to the immediate vicinity of the streams or to the 
shores of lagoons and pools, but, a large proportion of them are, as might be 
expected, forest dwellers. 
Biittikofer includes two hundred and thirty-one species in his list of the birds 
of Liberia. As revised and corrected, Dr. Allen’s list comprises two hundred and 
eighty-one species and subspecies. He has accompanied each item with a very 
brief description especially designed to help any resident slightly familiar with 
birds to identify the specimens he may meet. He has also specified the range 
of the birds in Africa, given a summary of what has been published about 
them, noted the occurrence of the species in Liberia, and added such notes of 
the Expedition as seemed sufficiently important. Dr. Allen is to be congratu- 
lated on the results that he obtained; in spite of all the difficulties which were 
experienced in making the collection, he collected one hundred and thirty-seven 
species, twenty-one of which had not previously been recorded from Liberia. 
Parasites of the genus Haemoproteus were found in four birds: the barbet 
Gymnobucco calvus, in the kingfisher Halcyon senegalensis, in the bee eater 
Melittophagus gularis, and in Pyromelana hordacea. ‘These are described in 
Chapter XXXIV. 
Reptiles and Amphibians. Three species of crocodiles are found in Liberia. 
The Crocodilus cataphractus is still common. It differs from the more frequent 
African form, C. niloticus, not only in the slenderness of its snout, but in the 
proportional length of the bones of the upper jaw, and in its bony armour. 
A specimen measuring two and one-half meters in length was shot near our 
camp by Dr. Bouet on the Du River, some twenty-five miles inland. This 
species is rarely found nearer the coast in the regions where the water is brack- 
ish, and where C. niloticus is the commonest species. Crocodiles, however, 
like all other forms of wild life in Liberia, are becoming less abundant. The 
short-headed crocodile, Osteolaemus tetraspis, is readily identified by its very 
short, broad head and turned-up nose, and by its much smaller size. It does 
not exceed five feet in length. A specimen collected by Allen in the St. Paul 
River, measured 1043 millimeters. In C. cataphractus from the Du River, a 
severe infection of the blood with a species of haemogregarine was discovered. 
The reptiles of Liberia are numerous and there are at least ten common 
species of poisonous snakes. In spite of the fact that these poisonous varieties 
are frequently seen, deaths from snake bite are said to be very rare on the 
coast, and in the interior we met with no severe or dangerous cases. Barbour 
and Loveridge, commenting on the fact that venomous snakes appear to occur in 
greater numbers in Liberia than on the east coast, say that of the total number 
of species now known from Liberia, one in three is poisonous. Of the seventy 
specimens brought back by the Expedition thirty are dangerously venomous. 
The most poisonous snakes of Liberia are the cobras Naja nigricollis, N. 
melanoleuca and N. goldiw, the tree cobra Dendraspis viridis, and the vipers 
Causus rhombeatus, C. lichtensteini, Bitis gabonica, B. nasicornis, Atheris chlo- 
