6 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 2 23 



within the Estrildinae, still the marldngs actually suggest a degree 

 of relationship between \dduiues and estrildines. Because of the 

 special interest attached to these markings and the reflection tubercles, 

 a more extended discussion of them is given elsewhere (pp. 22-30). 



The position of the Viduinae within the ploceid family tree is, 

 according to Chapin, one of the terminal branches of the Estrildine 

 section. Sushkin, on the contrary, considered them as a rather 

 primitive offshoot from a much more basal portion of the same sub- 

 familial trunk. He stated that "Vidua and Steganura, which show 

 some unmistakeable features of the Estrildinae, and none of the 

 characters common to the Ploceinae that could not be interpreted 

 as primitive, are in their skeletons the most primitive of all Estril- 

 dinae. 1 see no reason for placing them at the top of the phylo- 

 genetic tree . . .; certainly they are strongly modified in their nuptial 

 plumage, but on a very low base. . . . The Estrildinae almost 

 surely are to be split up after fm'ther investigation; of the genera 

 known anatomically in the latter subfamily, Steganura and Vidua 

 are the least advanced in many respects, and least different from the 

 Ploceinae." Sushkin suggested that the viduines are not too far from 

 the common ancestral stock from which both the Estrildinae and the 

 Ploceinae diverged, and gave as evidence a number of structural 

 characters. 



Thus, in the structure of the skull. Vidua and Steganura agree 

 with the Estrildinae in having a vestigial interorbital fontanel, and 

 in having the palatal crests fairly widely separated; they differ from 

 the Estrildinae, however, and agree with the Ploceinae in having a 

 persistent interpalatal suture, and in having the anterior palatal 

 processes less strongly dilated than in typical Estrildinae, the shape 

 and size of the interpalatal space resembling that in the Ploceinae. 

 Other cranial characters of the viduines listed by Sushkin as primi- 

 tive traits are the fusion of the pterygoids and palatals; the breadth 

 of the vomer, which is bordered with ventrall}" protruding sharp 

 edges; the wide base of the parasphenoidal rostrum, which is only 

 feebly swollen anteriorly and only slightty keeled posteriorly; and 

 the descending portion of the nasal being narrow. 



According to Chapin (1929, pp. 482-483), the late W. De W. 

 Miller discovered that the Vidua gToup differs from the tj^pical 

 Estrildinae, as it does from all the Ploceinae, in possessing one row 

 of well-developed lesser secondary coverts. Vidua macroura has a 

 well formed, clearly visible normal row of these little feathers. 

 V. fischeri and Steganura have five large-sized lesser coverts, the two 

 or three distal ones being absent. V. chalybeaia ultramarina shows 

 a similar row of six feathers. While this condition may well be a 

 primitive character, it is not present in the Bubalornithinae, the 



