PARASITIC WEAVE RBIRDS 59 



with the same party of brownish birds. How can they recognize 

 females of their owti kmd, so a species can preserve its separate 

 existence?" As a matter of fact, recent information Ivindly given 

 me by Donald W. Lamm makes me wonder if they can, or at least if 

 they do. In Mozambique he saw a female combassou of micertain 

 species being com:"ted simultaneously by a male glossy combassou, 

 Vidua amauropieryx, and a male dusk}" combassou, V. funerea (the 

 red bill of the former and the white bill of the latter plainly noted). 

 Chapin also stated: "The case is very like that of Steganura para- 

 disaea, especially in the regions where two forms of paradise whydah 

 occur together. In Steganura the form of the taU (in adult breedmg 

 males) is evident at a distance; in Hypochera the colors of the bill and 

 feet are sometimes distinctive, and they should always be carefuUy 

 noted." 



I strongly urge that collectors make every effort to get apparently 

 paired breeding birds and mark them so that later the female can 

 be identified by the plumage characters of its male companion. 

 The observation of Lamm's cited above suggests that even if the 

 males cannot or do not distinguish between females of their own 

 and closely related species, the females may do so with the males. 

 This possibility would fit in with what Emlen (195G) reported for 

 Coliuspasser and Euplectes, which have numerous species, and whose 

 females and males in nonbreeding plumage are almost indistinguish- 

 able, but whose breeding males are very different. Emlen found that 

 the males establish discrete territories on which they go through their 

 courtship display indiscruninately for females of any of the species 

 and from which they drive away males of their own or other species. 

 According to his conclusion, the distinctive male nuptial plumage and 

 the display, although used for defending the territory, probably 

 evolved primarily with respect to species recognition in mate selection 

 by the females. 



That two or more species of combassou were found together in 

 several parts of Africa in breeding condition merely emphasizes the 

 need for elucidation, v/hich can only come from more careful and 

 critical collecting. As it is, few of the identifications made of female 

 and nonbreeding male specimens in museum collections can be looked 

 upon as more than guesses, regardless of how defhiitely their labels 

 were inscribed with names subsequently used in published reports. 



