124 r.s. national museum bulletin 223 



Breeding Season 



The following are the known indications of breeding season of the 

 strawtail: 



Ethiopia: Near Yav^allo, eggs presumed to be of this species, June 12. 



Italian Somaliland: Fledged young birds, May and July. 



Kenya: Between Ndai and Kinani, female with a well developed egg in the 

 oviduct, collected April 2. Maktau, adult male with much enlarged gonads 

 collected March 29. 



Tanganyika: Birds said to be in breeding condition, March to April (Mack- 

 worth Praed and Grant, 1955, pp. 1048-1049, but evidence not given). 



Songs and Calls 



Schuster (1926, p. 728) considers the call note of the strawtail 

 "finch-like" and difficult to describe. The only calls I heard of the 

 strawtail were a series of short, sharp, monosyllabic tschip notes, 

 indistinguishable to my ear from those of the pintail. 



Mackworth-Praed and Grant (1955, pp. 1048-1049) described the 

 song as a short bunting-like song and also as a small, sweet, rather 

 lisping serinlilie song. In my field notes, I described the song as like 

 that of the pintail but more modulated and the notes more run 

 together. 



Krabbe (1931, p. 134) described the song of captive strawtails as 

 a series of twittering notes given in rapidly rising tempo. 



Courtship, Territorial Behavior, and Mating 



In central Tanganyika, Schuster (1926, p. 728) observed the 

 "dance flight" of the strawtail, a courtship performance essentially 

 similar to that of the pintail. The male hovered a little distance 

 above the female, and rose and fell in an undulatory manner while the 

 rapid wing beats made a loud whhring sound. I observed a similar 

 performance near Taveta, Kenj^a, but was not close enough to hear 

 any whuTing noise. 



Little is known of territorialism in the strawtail. Once, at Maktau, 

 Ken3^a, March 29, 1925, I observed a fight between two males of this 

 species. One of the males was perching in a tall bush when suddenly 

 another male flew nearby. The first one immediately gave chase and 

 the two began fighting with their bills and ^^^ngs in midair, about 20 

 feet from the ground. As they struggled they slowly fell to the 

 ground, and first one was on top and then the other, as they began 

 rolling over and over like a ball. As they fought they uttered onl}'^ a 

 few occasional tschip notes, and were remarkably silent for birds 

 under the stress of excitement. The fight ended just as suddenly as 

 it started, when one of the birds (it was impossible to distinguish 

 between them) flew off. The other pursued it a few yards and then 



