PARASITIC WEAVERBIRDS 91 



with its total distribution. The following are the only definite data 

 known to me of breeding dates and localities: 



Ethiopia: Yavello, June 29, male with enlarged gonads collected. 

 British Somaliland: Baboloc, September 12, fully fledged young. 

 Kenya: Kisumu, July, breeding records. North Kavirondo, June, "breeding." 

 Tanganyika: Ngumumvu, February 8, male with enlarged gonads collected. 

 Morogoro, June 19, fully fledged young. 



Uganda: Latome, Karamojo, September 17, "breeding." 



Songs and Calls 



The only notes that I ever heard from the blue widow bird were 

 monosyllabic, rather weak but high chipping notes not distinguishable 

 to my ear from the ordinary call notes of the pintail, Vidua macroura. 

 I never heard what may be the true courtship song, and no one else 

 has recorded anything about it. 



Courtship 



At Tsavo, Kenya, May 6, 1925, I saw a male blue widow bird in 

 full nuptial plumage together with two birds in the "sparrowy" 

 plumage — either females or immature males flitting about in a dense 

 thorny tangle on the river's edge. The birds then settled on the 

 ground, and the male flew up and hovered over one of the brownish 

 birds, just as the pin-tailed widow bird does in its courtship. The 

 wings beat rapidly, the long tail feathers jerked with the wmg beats so 

 that they seemed to cascade over the "female," and white patches on 

 either side of the rump showed as the bird moved. The male remained 

 in one spot for approximately half a minute in this hovering perform- 

 ance. I could not hear if it made any vocal sound, as I was watching 

 from some distance through field glasses. The action was slightly less 

 vigorous than it is in the pintail, but I cannot say if the lone instance 

 observed is entirely typical in this respect. 



Recently V. G. L. van Someren (1956, p. 505) watched a male dis- 

 play "before the hens in much the same way as the pied whydah 

 [pin-tailed widow birdl though not so elaborately." 



Hosts 



R. Neunzig (1929b, pp. 9-11) assumed that an egg or a nestling 

 recorded by V. G. L. van Someren (1918, p. 282) as the pintail in a 

 nest of Estrilda erythronotos delamerei,^ really ought to be considered 

 as the blue widow bird, but for this reidentification he presented no 

 valid basis. The only arguments that he cited are the general similar- 

 ity of the Juvenal plumages of the Estrilda and of the blue widow 



>• Estrilda delamerei Sharpe, Bull. British Omith. Club, vol. 10, 1900, p. 102 (Athi River, Eenya). 



