PARASITIC WEAVERBIRDS 131 



Scaly weaver: Sporopipes squamifrons (Smith) ^s 



Both of the proposed races of the scaly weaver are reported as 

 victims of the shafttail. At Qiiickborn, near Okahandja, Damara- 

 land, on May 20, 1925, R. D. Bradfield (reported by A. Roberts, 1928, 

 p. 318) collected a young shafttail that was being fed by a pair of scaly 

 weavers. This record involves i^the Damaraland race of the host, 

 S. s. damarensis Reichenow.^^ A record assignable to the nominate race 

 of the host was reported by D. C. H. Plowes, who collected a set of 

 five eggs of the scaly weaver with one of the shafttail 2 miles south- 

 east of Warmbaths, Transvaal, on January 25, 1948. 



Another record, possibly pertinent here, is a set of five eggs of the 

 scaly weaver and one of a long-taUed widow bu'd (possibly the shaft- 

 tail) taken at Andalusia, Transvaal, on April 12, 1942, by C. H. 

 Jerome, in whose collection the set was when I examined it in 1950. 

 The locahty, near Kimberley, is one where both the shafttail and the 

 pintail are said to occur, and therefore the actual parasite cannot be 

 determined. In his published note on these eggs, Jerome (1943, pp. 

 100-101) had called it "V. macroura or V. regia," but in 1950, when 

 showing me his egg collection, he came to the conclusion that it was 

 a shafttail egg. In an editorial note on Jerome's paper, A. Roberts 

 (1943, p. 102) called it "probably V. macroura," but he admitted 

 lacking accurate data on eggs of the shafttail. 



Masked weaver: Ploceus velatus Vieillot ^^ 



The masked weaver was stated to be a host of the shafttail, but 

 corroborative data was not published. Hoesch and Niethammer 

 (1940, pp. 361-363) stated that for several years the greatest number 

 of sbafttails met with were seen in close proximity to colonies of 

 masked weavers. During this time hundreds of nests of the masked 

 weaver were examined, but no indication of any parasitism by the 

 shafttail was found; however the authors stated that at Okawaka, in 

 the Waterberg area, the masked weaver was said to be the unques- 

 tioned host of the shafttail. They refer to "K. Lorang-Okawaka am 

 Waterberg" as the source of this information, but there are no pub- 

 lished data pertaining to this reference. Hoesch and Niethammer 

 cast some doubt on this matter by observing that both the Ploceus 

 and the Vidua live together in mixed groups as long as they are in the 

 off-season plumage, and that the majority of shafttails seen in the 

 Ploceus colonies were birds not yet finished molting. They even 

 question whether the shafttail is a regularly breeding bird of South - 



s* Estrelda squamifrons A. Smith, Report of the expedition for exploring central Africa . . . , 1836, p. 49 

 (South Africa). 

 " Sporopipes squamifrons damarensis Relchenow, Die V6gel Afrikas, vol. 3, 1905, p. 838 (Rehol>otb). 

 31 Ploceus telatut Vieillot, Nouveau dictlonnaire d'histolre naturelle, vol. 34, 1819, p. 132 (Namaqualand) . 



