( 244 ) A REVISION OF THE GENUS CALAMOCICRLA Sharpe. By OSCAU NEUMANN. THE species placed in the genns Calamocichla are most nearlj' related to some of the geiiTis Aci-ocephalus, sucli as A. bai'ticatus, streperus, palustris, and stentoreus. They resemble them iu strnctnre, in habits, and mostly also in coloration, the well-developed first primary being the only generic character to distinguish the two genera. If there was not a trne Acrocephalus, viz. .1. bai'ticatus, l)reeding in Sonth and East Africa, one would be justified to consider the species of Calamocichla the representatives of Acrocephalus in Africa. One of the species of the group, Calamocichla gracilirostris Hartl., has hitherto been kept separate from the other members on account of its somewhat narrower and shorter first primary, and was dealt with as Lusciniola gracilirostris in vol. v. of the Catalogue of Birds, while leptorhyncha, newtoni, and brevipennis are to be found in different places in vol. vii. In a work even of such standing as Reichenow's Vogel A/rihas, gracilirostris and the other species are still dealt with under different genera. Sharpe, iu Hand-list of Birds, vol. iv. p. 206, is the first to give gracilirostris its right place. Another very interesting fact is the striking external resemblance of some of the species of Calamocichla to one species of the Pgcnonotidae, viz. Phgllostrephas strepitans of Reichenow. This resemblance was the cause of a rather amusing confusion. Firstly, one species of Calamocichla, viz. parva, was originally described by Fischer and Reichenow as a Phyllostrephus. Ten years later Reichenow corrected this error in his Vogel von Deutsch Ost Afrika, and again, ten years later (1904), the same author redescribed his Phyllostrephus strcjiitaiis, vi\i\c\x\s mdeeA a true Phyllostrephus, as Calamocichla schillingsi. Shelley had already redescribed the Phyllostrephus strepitans as Phyllostrephus sharpei in 1880, and eight years laisT {P.Z.S. 1888, p. 24) he employed that name for four specimens of a large form of a true Calamocichla. Sharpe, Hand-list, vol. iv. p. 200, corrected this mistake to a certain extent, but erroneously identified this large Calamocichla with griseldis Hartl., which is another mistake, as griseldis is a true Acrocephalus. That such mistakes as these could be made by the three foremost living authorities on African Ornithology shows that the genus is a rather difficult one to deal with. In working out the species a still greater diiliculty is encountered than the external similarity to Acrocephalus and Phyllostrephus, it being an interesting but embarrassing fact that the female of a larger species sometimes resembles the male of the next smaller one. Further, in the West African forms the adult birds are mostly grey above and below, and the young birds are rufous or yellowish brown, while in the East African forms the differences in coloration between j'oung and adult specimens are not so striking. The Genus Calamocichla was founded by Sharpe in the Cataloque of Birds, vol. vii. p. 131, where he gives no description, but simply unites under this name two species, newtoni aud brevipennis. The definition of the genus is, however, to be found in the key to the Genera of Bradypteri, pp. 93 and 94. This key fits very well brecipennis and all other species of Calamocichla from tropical Africa,
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