4 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 2 23 



ing the degree of similarity or differeDce in the skeletal structure of 

 many of the genera ol the family. 



In addition to these two famUy-wide studies, many of the subsections 

 of the group and even individual genera were reviewed by, among 

 others, Beecher (1953), Delacour (1943), Delacour and Edmond- 

 Blanc (1934), Mainardi (1958), Stallcup (1954), Steiner (1955), and 

 Woltei-s (1939, 1943, 1949, 1950, and 1957). All these studies yielded 

 data wliich have been incorporated into the present study. 



Chapin (1932, pp. 380, 386-387) pointed out that the geograpliic 

 dispersal of the different sections of the family may help reveal 

 something of their past history and even of the relative time and 

 place of their origmal deviation from the ancestral stock. He 

 particularly noted that two of the larger subfamilies of the Ploceidae, 

 the Ploceinae and the Estrildinae, range from the Ethiopian to the 

 Oriental Region, the Estrildinae ranging even to AustraUa. 



Differences in geographic dispersal were looked upon as possibly 

 lending some weight to recent doubts as to the closeness of inter- 

 relationship of these two subfamilies. Beecher (1953, pp. 303-304) 

 went so far as to suggest that the two are families and arose in quite 

 separate parts of the world — the Ploceidae from the Promeropinae or 

 Cisticolinae in Africa, and the Estrildinae from the Meliphagidae or 

 Cisticolinae in Australia. Tliis interpretation seems needlessly ex- 

 treme, but it does reflect the impression made upon its proposer by 

 the structural dissimilarities in the two groups. Chapin, on the other 

 hand, noted that Asiatic Ploceinae are nearest to Pachyphantes and 

 Brachycope among African genera — the former a savanna dweller and 

 the latter a bird of forested river banks. In this connection he noted 

 that only two ploceine genera, Foudia and Nelicurvius, and only a 

 single estrildine species, Spermestes nana,^ occur in Madagascar. The 

 estrildine group became differentiated into more genera and species 

 in Malaj^sia and Australia. Chapin concluded that an earlier, possibly 

 original locaUzation in southern Africa of the Ploceinae may account 

 for the lesser spread of this subfamily eastward to India and Malaya. 

 The age of the subfamily is suflficient to have given time for an in- 

 filtration comparable to that achieved by the Estrildinae, but such 

 an infiltration did not occur. 



As Chapin stated, the fact that the forest-dwelling Ploceinae of 

 Africa "are obliged to be so largely insectivorous, despite then* gram- 

 nivorous beaks, may also stamp tliis as a secondary adaptation to 

 a new habitat. Likewise the Estrildinae now have forest-dwelling 

 genera such as Nigrita and Spermospiza in Africa, but not in India or 

 New Guinea. It is the grassland weaver-finches that live in all 



' Pyrhula nana Pudieran, Rev. Zool., 1845, p. 62 (Madagascar). 



