PARASITIC WEAVERBIRDS 125 



came back, perched on a bush where it remained for a few seconds, 

 and then flew off too. As it flew I collected it and found it to be a 

 male with much enlarged testes. It seems as though the fight may- 

 have been over the acquisition or maintenance of a breeding territory. 

 There are also no data on mating. While it is true that there are 

 usually a number of female-appearing individuals with each male in 

 breeding plumage, there is no evidence that all of them are really 

 females, and not immature or nonbreedmg males. It is therefore not 

 warranted to assume a polygamous state from such observations. In 

 Ethiopia, Erlanger (1907, p. 24) found the species in groups of from 10 

 to 20 birds, almost always with only a single adult male in breeding 

 plumage. Erlanger noted that it seemed as though the leadership of 

 the flock was vested in the fuU-plumaged male, as when he flew off the 

 others alwa3^s foUowed, 



Eggs and Egg Laying 



No authentically identified eggs of the strawtail have been de- 

 scribed. Benson (1947, p. 43) recorded two eggs found in a nest of 

 Oranatina ianthinogaster ugandae^^ with four eggs of the waxbiU, near 

 YaveUo. He reported the two as unmarked white in color, and 15.7 

 by 12.7 mm. and 15.7 by 12.5 mm. in size. He considered them as 

 probably belonging to a strawtail but his view cannot be accepted as 

 more than a guess. He may well have been influenced by R. Neun- 

 zig's earlier assumption (1929b) that the purple grenadier is the 

 "usual" host of the strawtail, an assumption based solely on the gen- 

 eral similarity of the juvenal plumages of the two species. Boetticher 

 (1952, p. 51), following Neunzig, listed Granatina ianthinogaster ^^ as the 

 host, but gave no actual data. 



Hosts 



I know of no hosts, although several writers, such as Delacour and 

 Edmond-Blanc (1934, p. 118), Benson (1947, p. 43), and Mackworth- 

 Praed and Grant (1955, pp. 1038, 1048) mentioned Granatina ian- 

 thinogaster as a victim of the strawtail. These statements seem to be 

 based on R. Neunzig's earlier statement (1929b), which remains only 

 a guess. I note, in passing, that Neunzig postulated the same host for 

 the strawtail as he did for the shafttail of southern and southwestern 

 Africa and on this basis suggested that the two species may be more 

 closely related to each other than to the other members of the genus 

 Vidua. 



2' Granatina ianthinoganter ugandne van Someron, Bull. British Omith. Club, vol. 40, 1919, p. 53 (Moroto, 

 northern Uganda). 

 ^ Uraeginthus ianthinogaster Reichenow, Omith. CentralbJ., vol. 4, 1879, p. 114 (Massa, Tana River). 



