On Birds from the Congo and South Western Africa

The bird-collections, treated of in this paper, have been made by Mr. P. J. van der Kellen ¹) in the region of the Upper Cunene and east of it in the valleys of the Okovango- and Umbella River. Before the collector reached these localities, he had a short stay on the Lower Congo (24 Sept.—22 Oct. 1884) where he happened to collect 13 species, which will be mentioned at the head of the following list. In the very short reports, sent over together with the collections, nothing is told about the habits of the specimens obtained, and as the birds of this region are very thoroughly and exhaustively treated of by Mr. Sharpe in his second edition of Layard’s Birds of South Africa, as well as by Prof. Barbosa du Bocage in his »Ornitkologie d’Angola”, there is but little left to say on van der Kellen’s South West African collection. This latter contains about 300 specimens, representing 131 different species. Two of the latter are new, while several others are very rare birds. The following are the places and dates, at which Mr. van der Kellen has obtained his specimens.