BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 405 



(64.9) ; tail, 42-48 (45.1) ; culmen, 14-15 (14.4) ; tarsus, 19-20 (19.6 

 mm). 



Heuglin ^- found this weaver in winter plumage in small flocks 

 along the White and Blue Niles in May and June. The prenuptial 

 molt begins in June, according to him, but it is earlier in southern 

 Shoa, as Mearns obtained breeding males as early as April 21. It is 

 curious that Mearns found males in nuptial feathering only at Gato 

 River (where he obtained no winter-plumaged birds) and only win- 

 ter-plumaged birds at Tertale and in northern Kenya Colony. It 

 makes one wonder whether the valley of the Gato River has some 

 climatic, and therefore seasonal, peculiarities, such as the trough of 

 Lake Albert on the Uganda-Congo border, for example, but this is 

 contradicted by the fact that Erlanger ^^ found the species breeding 

 early in April in Gurraland, farther to the east. 



Mearns collected 17 sets of eggs supposedly of this weaver at Gato 

 River, May 1-13. Some of the sets are positively identified, while 

 others, brought to him by natives, must remain doubtful in this 

 regard. The eggs are enormously variable in color, in markings, and 

 in size. Some have a white ground color while others are bluish 

 green. All are marked with reddish brown ; in some cases the marks 

 are fine dots, in others heavy dots and even small blotches; in some 

 the markings are evenly scattered about the egg; in others they are 

 concentrated at the larger pole. In size the eggs vary from 18 by 13 

 mm to 22 by 15 mm. Erlanger gives extremes of 20.2 by 13.5 and 

 21 by 14 mm. 



The nests are beautifully, compactly woven structures of palm leaf 

 strips and are suspended from above and have the entrance from 

 the underside. There is no tubelike "vestibule" as in nests of some 

 of the weavers, but the entrance is on the same level with the bottom 

 of the outside of the egg chamber itself. 



On May 6, Mearns wrote in his diary as follows : 



I have watched this colony of Hyphantornis buildin? their nests. All the 

 birds appeared to me to be one species, of which four females and two males 

 were collected to-day, others before. There are about 20 nests on small green 

 thorn saplings, averaging two nests to a tree. They are suspended about 7 feet 

 above the ground from the tips of lower branches. It appears ttvat some birds 

 of this species lay eggs with white and others blue ground color. 



Both sexes take part in the nest-building operations. Thus, a male 

 shot on April 24 was in the act of weaving a straw into an unfinished 

 nest. In three instances females were shot inside their nests, appar- 

 ently by the native collector — assistants merely firing at the nests — 

 a rather discreditable performance to say the least. 



" Ornithologie Nordost-Afrika's, etc., vol. 1, p. 556, 1869. 

 "Journ. ftir Orn., 1907, p. 9. 



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