BIRD LIFE ON THE GOLD COAST [To the Editor of
the Smut/troll.)
Sm,—Having read Mr. L. Travers Chubb's letter in your issue of November 26th, I submit the following small details of information from Kumasi in Ashanti, which stands on a few square miles of clearing in the heart of the bush.
The English swallow and the spotted flycatcher spend winter here. Regarding snipe, I cannot say that they migrate from Britain, but they - are certainly migratory from the Kumasi point of view, and it is the period of the northern winter they spend here. These remarks apply also to the heron and the common sandpiper. A pair of curlews paid a very brief visit here in December, 1925.
It is a curious fact that whereas so few English migrants
come here, birds similar to all the common English southerly migrants are very familiar here during northern winter. A chat, a wagtail, a shrike, a pipit, two cuckoos, a nightjar, and several species of warblers spend winter here, but no English species of any of these families is included. It is also curious that, excepting warblers, Kumasi has no native species of any one of these families. It has, in addition to the foregoing, many other interesting visitors for the season.
Another interesting fact of bird life in Kumasi, from the Englishman's point of view, is the number of apparently accidental visitors. Probably the peculiar location of Kumasi explains this. One can imagine that this considerable clearing in the vast bush country forms a factor in migratory bird reckoning somewhat similar to that of a small island at sea; or an oasis in a desert. —.1 am, Sir, &c,
KW18482.
F. C. llotAnim
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