82 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 223 



French Sudan: K6 Masina, January 30, hen with oviduct egg (Bates, 1914, p. 

 710). 



Nigeria: Lukoja, June 19, egg (Jourdain and Shuel, 1935, p. 662). Kano, 

 August 9, hen with developed ova (Bannerman, 1949, pp. 373-375). Nasarawa, 

 August 12, male with greatly enlarged gonads (Serle, 1940, p. 45). 



Sudan: Darfur, October and January, "probably breeding" (Mackworth- 

 Praed and Grant, 1955, p. 1042). 



Belgian Congo: Kasenyi, August and September, males with enlarged gonads 

 (Chapin, 1954, p. 568). 



Uganda: Entebbe, April and May, eggs (identification only probable. Pitman, 

 in litt.). Pairing in January V. G. L. van Someren, 1916, p. 426). 



Kenya: Kisumu, May and June, "breeding" (V. G. L. van Someren, 1916, 

 p. 624) near Fort Hall, late March and early April. Birds with enlarged gonads 

 collected (Lonnberg, 1911, p. 107). 



Ethiopia: Dangila, September 19, female, supposedly nest building, (Cheesman 

 and Sclater, 1936, p. 194). 



Tanganyika: Iringa, March, breeding female collected "about to lay her last 

 egg" (Lynes, 1934, pp. 128-129). No locality, January, breeding condition 

 (Mackworth-Praed and Grant, 1955, p. 1042), 



Songs and Calls 



The vocal utterances of the black-winged combassou are similar to 

 those of the other combassous. In the country around Taveta, 

 Kenya Colony, I noted the call note of the eastern race, Vidua chalybeata 

 orientalis, as an emphatic, slightly harsh dzip and concluded that it is 

 not given as often or as repetitively as it is by some widow birds. 

 The song is a rapid but rather formless series of notes, quite similar to 

 that of the pintail, Vidua macroura, but slightly huskier and buzzier. 

 In western Africa Bates (1930, p. 515) noted the nominate subspecies 

 singing "a, few scattering notes." 



Courtship and Mating 



At Taveta, Kenya Colony, in late March and the first 3 weeks of 

 April, I often watched male black-winged combassous go through 

 their display. It is a bouncing, aerial dance, the ahborne segments 

 of it being a quivering affair somewhat similar to the hovering display 

 of the pin-tailed widow bird but of shorter duration. Between 

 each of the bounces, the cock returns to the ground and then immedi- 

 ately leaps up again. He repeats 3 to 10 times. The whole display 

 may last as long as 3 seconds, and is accompanied by a rasping, 

 beady "song," the notes unmodulated and jerky as though the 

 rhythmic bounces of the bird interfered with its delivery. The bird 

 rises only a foot or two above the hen (or hen-plumaged bird), which 

 is usually on the ground. 



Mackworth-Praed and Grant (1955, p. 1041) wrote that the north- 

 eastern subspecies ultramarina often breeds in immature plumage. 

 This statement implies that courtship also precedes the development 



