PARASITIC WEAVERBIRDS 43 



disposition of the cuckoo finch. Thus, V. G. L. van Someren (1918, 

 pp. 282-283) had to remove thorn from an aviary containing other 

 birds because of their quarrelsomeness and general pugnacity. 



Pakenham's observations in Pemba (1939, p. 553) bear on the 

 question of individual territoriality. He found a grass warbler's nest 

 with two young cuckoo finches in it, one much more developed than 

 the other. As he stated, the "disparity in age of these two suggests 

 different parentage, and therefore lack of definition (if not total 

 absence) of the sj^stem of 'territory' among the adult birds, a state 

 of affau's I can well believe from the numbers I encountered within 

 the comparatively small area of ground where the Cisticolas were 

 nesting." The situation in Pemba was apparently quite different 

 from that on Neuby-Varty's Rhodesian ranch. 



Eggs and Egg Laying 



The few reliably identified eggs of the cuckoo finch show some 

 variation in their appearance. Thus, one egg found in a nest of 

 Cisticola juncidis Neuby-Varty (1950, p. 37) described as having a 

 white shell color, with small spots of pale lavender and dark reddish 

 brown scattered over the entire shell, but more densely spotted at the 

 thick pole, and measuring 18 by 12.75 mm., the egg essentially rather 

 long and pointed. Two fairly similar eggs taken from other nests 

 of the same host species A. W. Vincent (1949, p. 663) described as 

 white, tinged with blue, thinly speckled with fine dots and a few larger, 

 but still small, spots of chocolate brown and shades of light and dark- 

 violet gray, and measuring 17.3 by 13 and 17.1 by 13 mm. On the 

 other hand, Payne (1944, p. 235) described the first known specimen 

 of this egg, from a nest of a Prinia subjfava, as "pale dull pinkish, 

 clouded at the thick end with faint purplish, with a few reddish brown 

 blotches and rather more spots of brownish red, becoming fewer in the 

 middle and only appearing as tiny markings at the thin end of the 

 egg, and measuring 17X12.5 mm." Recently Neuby-Varty (in litt., 

 June 24, 1956) described another egg from a nest of the desert grass 

 warbler, Cisticola aridula, as very light pale blue with small pinpoint 

 spots of russet scattered all over but concentrated around the thick 

 pole so as to form a well defined band. The egg measured 17.5 by 

 13 mm. 



It follows that the eggs are either whitish, pink, or pale bluish, 

 variably flecked or speckled with reddish brown and violet gray, with 

 usually more of these markings at the large pole than at the small one. 

 The eggs vary in size from 17.0 to 18.0 1)3^ 12.75 to 13.0 mm. 



The descriptions of the eggs enable us to dispose of the eggs at- 

 tributed to the cuckoo finch by Skinner (1923, a and b) on the identi- 

 fication of their collector, Carlisle, who obtained a "set" of three eggs 



