The Species of Parasitic 

 Weaverhirds 



Cuckoo Finch: Genus Anomalospiza 



Anomalospiza imberbis (Cabanis) ** 

 Plates 3, 5 



The cuckoo finch is one of the two known isolated brood parasites, 

 i.e., a single parasitic species with no close relatives with similar hab- 

 its. The other one is the black-headed duck (Heteronetta atricapilla") 

 of southern South America. 



In the following account all the data are brought together relating 

 to the biology of this well-named, anomalous weaver finch — all the 

 published information together with a very considerable nmnber of 

 unrecorded observations kindly sent to me by the men who made 

 them, the data on museum specimen labels, and the little that I was 

 able to learn of this bird in the field. My field acquaintance with it 

 was limited to a few hours near Nairobi, Kenya, in July 1925, but the 

 birds had finished breeding and had assembled in a sizable flock in a 

 little swamp. 



Distribution 



The cuckoo finch occurs from the Transvaal (Woodbush, Pretoria, 

 Barberton) and Damaraland (?), north through Mozambique (lie). 

 Southern Rhodesia (near Salisbury, near Marandellas, near Bulawayoj, 

 Northern Rhodesia (Ndola, Balovale), Nyasaland (Dowa, Dedza, 

 Nchisi, Mzimba), Angola (Chimporo), southern and eastern Belgian 

 Congo (Katanga, Kasai, Ivivu, and Uelle District, north at least to 

 Lake Edward), Tanganyika, including Zanzibar and Pemba Islands 

 (Kilosa, near Mwanza, Ngomeni), Kenya (Mombasa, Thika, Nairobi, 

 Kisumu, Elgon, Moroto, Turkwel, Fort HaU, Ugaia), Uganda (Lango), 

 to the southern Sudan (Kajo Kaji, Lado area), and Ethiopia (where 

 it is known as yet from only two areas, Jiomma in the southwestern 

 part of the country and the Lake Tana area in the northwest), and 

 also west to Cameroons (Tibati), French Guinea (vicinity of the 

 Nimba Mountains), and Sierra Leone (Bo). 



« Crithagra imberbis Cabanis, Joum. Ornlth., vol. 16, 1868, p. 412, (East Africa, probably on the coast 

 opposite Zanzibar). 



«' Anas atricapilla Merrem, in Ersch and Grabcr, Allgcmelne Encyclopedia, vol. 35, 1841, p. 26 (Buenos 

 Aires). 



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