200 A VISIP tO THE vMONBUTTU.

of cavities in the interior of the pieces, the quality of the product was become in every respect faultless. Samples of palm-oil were collected to send to the north. The further cultivation of this product is to be attempted in Makraka.

A residence of nine days filled in with official occupation is naturally insufficient for the acquisition of exhausting notes concerning a country and its inhabitants. As, however, both the geography and ethnology of this country have been worthily represented through the industrious work of Junker and Casati, I was all the more anxious to devote every free moment to collecting, in order at least to obtain an insight into the hitherto totally unknown fauna of the land. If Dr. Schweinfurth’s botanical researches had already proved that, in regard to vegetation, Monbuttu forms the transition from the north-east African region to that of tropical west Africa, the supposition still needed proof as far as concerned its fauna. Schweinfurth’s list of animals certainly contains Troglodytes niger and Potamocherus peneillatus, but the rest are animals of much wider distribution over the continent. Though I may not have succeeded in enriching this list very largely, there are at least indications to be derived from the discovery of an entirely black Cercopithecus, which occurs in addition to Cercopithecus sabeus, a small Galago, an Anomalurus, an Atherura, a new genet, a flat-tailed squirrel, and quite a large number of other new Rodents. Birds are even more abundant. Forms of so decided a character as the Turacus, Musophaga, Corythaix, Amblyospiza, Spermospiza, Tricholema, and several Trichophorus, as well as quite a list of Nectarinide unknown in the north, determine the ornithological position of the country. As the same holds good in regard to the amphibians and reptiles, and also, though less completely, to the Lepidoptera which have been collected, I believe I may be permitted to hold that Monbuttu, both in respect to its fauna and flora, presents a transition to the tropical west, the ‘‘ West African sub-region of Wallace.” The presence of north-easterly and easterly species is occasioned by the steppe zone extending into the proper forest zone. Further investigations will help to fix exactly the line of demarcation in special regions.

I was not able to learn anything of Monbuttu’s possible