Zoological Illustrations Series II/Plate 119



This is one of the pretty warblers of Southern Africa, discovered by Le Vaillant: it is very common and widely distributed in the interior, but rare near the Cape. Le Vaillant mentions having found a young bird of the Criard Cuckoo, in the pigmy nest of this little species, which had already grown to the size of a thrush: it not only filled the nest, but actually enlarged and destroyed its original shape. Yet still did the foster parents, by a most extraordinary instinct, go on feeding this overgrown parasite, although it was even then more than double the size of themselves. Our figure is of the natural size of the male; the female is without the black collar. Specimens are in Mr. Burchell's Museum and in our own.

That this bird is of a tenuirostral type, is almost certain; seeing that it is an obvious representation of Motacilla, Pachycephala, Tamatia, Trichas, Charadrius, and many other collared groups: but whether it forms part of the genus Prinea, or represents the tenuirostral genus between that and Culicivora, is very uncertain. We suspect that this latter station is filled by the Taylor-Warblers of India, not one of which is to be found in our public Museums.