72 "Cr.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 223 



tions, as the records on which they are based are uncertain. The 

 pertinent statements are the following: 



Chapin (1954, p. 572) wrote that the glossy combassou (race 

 nigeriae) bred in the Uelle District of northeastern Belgian Congo by 

 laying its eggs "in nests of fire-finches or waxbills, although Lagono- 

 sticta senegala was not available there. It may well be that the 

 choice of fosterers varies with the different species of Hypochera." 

 Mackworth-Praed and Grant (1955, pp. 1042-1043) wrote of the 

 glossy combassou: "Parasitic on the Red-billed Fire-Finch and other 

 Waxbills, eggs white, no measurements available." Unfortunately, 

 no supporting information was given, and I have not been successful 

 in learning who found and described the eggs and how their identifica- 

 tion was determined. 



In 1951 in the Victoria Memorial Museum, Salisbury, Southern 

 Rhodesia, I found an entry in the catalog about a set of four eggs of the 

 glossy combassou taken by T. Collins from a nest of a red bishop 

 (Eupledes orix) ^^ in the Insiza District, Southern Rhodesia, on Febru- 

 ary 2, 1939. I was unable to locate the specimens. According to the 

 catalog entry, a pair of glossy combassous were seen near the nest 

 "very agitated in their behaviour." Apparently the collector was 

 under the impression that the combassous had nested in an old nest 

 of a bishop bird, an impression heightened by the excited actions of 

 the pair of combassous; however, in the light of what we know of the 

 parasitic reproduction of combassous in general, there is no reason to 

 accept this inference. 



Winterbottom (1951, p. 39) wrote that the cordon bleu (Estrilda 

 angolensis) ®^ was recorded as a victim of the glossy combassou. 

 This statement seems to be based on two indefinite records: One by 

 Belcher (1930b, p. 74) of an egg tentatively identified as of a combassou, 

 found with a set of eggs attributed to Estrilda angolensis in a nest 

 apparently built in an old nest of a Pytilia; and one, an incomplete 

 observation by Winterbottom apparently not published untU a year 

 after (1952, p. 40) an earlier statement of his. Winterbottom saw a 

 hen glossy combassou mth a male close b}'' enter the nest of a cordon 

 bleu, near the top of a high Acacia along the bank of the Zambezi 

 River. The nest was inaccessible, and, consequently, he was not 

 able to determine if tliis activity was actually a case of parasitism. 

 I recall Adlersparre (1922, p. 10) stating that "Hypochera" (no 

 specific identification given) is parasitic on the cordon bleu; unfortu- 

 nately, he gave no supporting data, and at this late date it is impossible 

 to learn what observations he may have had as a basis for his pro- 

 nouncement. 



«8 Emberiza orix Linnaeus, Systema naturae, ed. 10, vol. 1, 1758, p. 177 (Africa, Angola). 

 M Fringilla angolensis Linnaeus, Systema naturae, ed. 10, vol. 1, 1758, p. 182 (Angola). 



