84 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 2 23 



thus left no record of what the eggs were hke, their number, and their 

 incubation period. Steinmetz (1937, pp. 352-354) wrote that a com- 

 bassou probably of this species laid four eggs in the Berlin Zoo. 

 Olsen (1958) recorded the incubation period (in captivity with Estrilda 

 senegala as the mcubating host) as 11 days. 



Hosts 



Only two species of small waxbills have been recorded as parasitized 

 by the black-winged combassou, the bronze mannikin and the red- 

 bellied fire finch. 



Bronze mannikin: Spermestes cucullatus Swainson ^^ 



V. G. L. Van Someren (in litt.) informed me that he had definite 

 records of the black-winged combassou using nests of the bronze 

 mannikin as receptacles for its eggs in the vicinity of Kisumu, Kenya, 

 in July 1912 and 1913. How many such instances came under 

 his observation is not known, and unfortunately no details are now 

 available. 



Red-bellied fire finch: Estrilda senegala (Linnaeue)^^ 



At Burrem, French Sudan, in October, Bates (1934, pp. 709-710), 

 saw "some little sparrowy [female?] Indigo-Finches entering with 

 Fire-Finches through the holes in the nest ceiling of a house . . . 

 and . . . saw something similar at Timbuktu. . . . The two species 

 may always breed together — unless, indeed, the Indigo-Finch is para- 

 sitic on the Fire-Finch." 



At liOkoja, Nigeria, June 19, Shuel {in Jourdain and Shuel, 1935, 

 p. 662) found nests of the red-bellied fire finch with eggs measuring 

 13-13.5 by 10.4 mm. But in one nest, one egg measured 14.7 by 

 11.5 mm., and was, in all probability, a black-winged combassou's 

 egg. Shuel found a similar nest with a four pure white eggs measuring 

 13.4-13.7 by 10.7-10.9 mm. He thought that this nest belonged to 

 the black-winged combassou because a dead and partly decomposed 

 female of this species lay just outside the nest and had an egg in its 

 oviduct. Chapin (1954, p. 569) interpreted the incident to mean that 

 the hen black-winged combassou probably got her foot entangled as 

 she came to the nest to lay in it, "and her struggles and death caused 

 the fire finches to abandon their home." 



As further noted by Chapin, in Gambia Hopkinson found a nest of 

 this fire finch out of which flew two young fire finches and one young 

 black-winged combassou. Even after he captured the young com- 

 bassou, the adult fire finches continued to bring food to it. 



" Spermestes cucuUatus Swainson, Birds of western Africa, vol. 1, 1837, p. 201 (Senegal). 

 '« Fringilla tenegala Linnaeus, Systems naturae, ed. 12, vol. 1, 1766, p. 320 (Senecal). 



