70 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 223 



Cameroons: Cameroon grasslands, breeding specimens taken in October and 

 January (Bates, 1930, pp. 515-516). 



Belgian Congo: Faradje, Uelle District, December 6, fully grown fledgling 

 collected. Adult male in breeding condition collected November 19. 



Sudan: Darfur, breeding in September (Mackworth-Praed and Grant, 1955, 

 pp. 1045-1046), based on Lynes (1924, p. 670), who merely assumed that these 

 combassous arrive to breed there in mid-September. 



Northern Rhodesia: "Along the Zambezi River," no date given, female 

 amauropteryx with a male in close company seen to enter the nest of a cordon- 

 bleu. Magoya Mazabuki, January 5, male nearly in breeding condition collected. 



Southern Rhodesia: Hunyani River at Sinoia, Mashonaland, January 6, 

 male in breeding plumage in full song (no breeding records however). Insiza 

 District, February 21, eggs attributed to this combassou, but identity must be 

 considered as unproved. 



Tanganyika: Matengo highlands north of Lake Nyasa, breeding season begins 

 in the dry season, February to June (Meise, 1937, pp. 155-156). 



Mozambique: Mocuba, February, male with gonads beginning to enlarge. 

 Others April 27, May 28, and June 5 with testes subsiding after recent breeding 

 (J. Vincent, 1936, pp. 111-112). Movene, January 28, "males were definitely 

 approaching breeding." April 19, male collected with testes still somewhat 

 enlarged (Lamm, in litt.). 



Nyasaland: Breeds February to June (Mackworth-Praed and Grant, 1955, 

 pp. 1042-1043). Breeds March to July (Belcher, 1930a, pp. 335-336). Males 

 in full breeding plumage with enlarged gonads collected May and June in northern 

 Nyasaland (Benson, 1941, p. 45). Egg "very probably of Hypochera sp." 

 April (Benson, 1953, p. 80). 



Songs and Calls 



Wlieii singing the male glossy combassou usually uses an exposed, 

 elevated perch on top of a tree in or near an expanse of grassland. 

 Thus, in Sierra Leone, Serle (1949, p. 125) wrote that in "northern 

 Koinadugu, in the orchard bush, in November, it was no uncommon 

 sight to see a male Indigo-finch perched in the summit of a tree in or 

 near a clearing, singing cheerily. This was obviously their breedmg 

 season." In Mashonaland, Southern Rhodesia, Irwin (1952, p. 115) 

 noted a male in full breeding plumage singing from the top of a bush 

 along the Hunyani River at Sinoia, on 6th January. In Nyasaland, 

 Belcher (1930a, pp. 335-336) found the males began to come into the 

 black nuptial plumage toward the end of the rains and to breed from 

 March to July. In the breeding season the flocks tend to break up 

 into pairs, "and the male . . . may be seen perched on a high branch 

 in the scrub, singing at intervals a pleasing little strain." In Mozam- 

 bique, Lamm noted that adult males in breeding plumage were occu- 

 pying conspicuous perches on the tops of dead trees, and were in full 

 song in March and April. 



The song is quite similar to that of the pintail (Vidua macroura), 

 a rapidly repeated series of notes neither rising nor descending in 

 pitch and possessed of little carrying power. The only caU note 



