PARASITIC WEAVERBIRDS 45 



three young. There appear, however, to have been numerous other 

 bu'ds in the same large cage, and it is not stated that an adult cuckoo 

 finch was ever seen at the nest or with the young attributed to it. 

 Furthermore, the description given of the nestlings does not agree 

 with the known juvenal plumage of the cuckoo-linch, a fact suggesting 

 that the identification of the bu-ds is open to question. The case is 

 too indefinite to be accepted. R. Neunzig (192G, pp. 547-548) gave 

 additional details of Sich's report, but nothing that really substantiates 

 it. It is particularly unfortunate that his information is so uncertain, 

 as it would otherwise supplement well-substantiated comparable infor- 

 mation on one of the combassous (see pp. 64-68). 



Hosts 



Whereas the parasitic viduine weavers confine their attention largely 

 to related estrildine species, the cuckoo finch, insofar as is known, 

 victmiizes grass warblers exclusivelj^. Undoubtedly additional host 

 species will be added with further field studies, but the records 

 available to date clearly point to the sylviine genera Cisticola and 

 Prima as the mainstaj^s of the cuckoo finch. 



Even within these sylviine genera there ma}^ be some selection by 

 the cuckoo finch, as is suggested by Cheesman's data (in Cheesman 

 and Sclater, 1935, p. 615). In northwestern Ethiopia he found three 

 species of Cisticola (galactotes, cantans, and hrunnescens) parasitized, 

 but noted that a fourth locally breeding form, eximia, was not found 

 molested. This result may be due to the peculiar, much moister 

 habitat selected by this species — watery meadows studded with 

 pedestals or clumps of earth about 9 inches high, crowned with a 

 growth of water grasses and sedges, and flooded throughout the whole 

 of the summer rainy season almost up to the tops of the pedestals. 

 Cisticola eximia nests in the grasses on the tops of these pedestals 

 along with such typically marsh bu-ds as snipe. Had Cheesman 

 examined a greater number of eximia nests, however, he might have 

 found signs of the cuckoo finch in them, as I have seen cuckoo finches 

 in a marshy, sedge-covered area of Kenya not too dissimilar from 

 Cheesman's description of these Abyssinian watery meadows. 



Habitat may well play a role in the cuckoo finch's selection, but nest 

 structure apparently does not. The recorded cisticoline host species 

 include forms building each of the various types of nests that Lynes 

 (1930, pi. 19) depicted for the genus. Ljmcs distinguished three 

 main kinds of nests: The "ball" type, a more or less globular nest 

 with the entrance on the side, near the top; the "soda bottle" type, a 

 vertically more elongated nest with the opening from above; and the 

 "tailor" type, similar to that of a tailor bird, attached or sewn to the 

 underside of large leaves. 



