144 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETEST 223 



as to its vocalisms — so few as to make me wonder if the species is 

 silent a good part of the time. Thus, Chapin (1954, p. 583) described 

 the display flight of the males in some detail but added that he 

 heard no vocal note from them. 



Schiitze (1929, p. 614) received a male paradise widow bird in 

 a shipment of live birds from Ethiopia. He kept it in his aviary and 

 found it to have a song like that of the common waxbill, EstrUda astrild. 



Courtship, Territorial Behavior, and AIating 



The courtship display of the paradise widow bird is quite different 

 from that of the other long-tailed widow birds. Whereas in the 

 latter the male hovers in a bouncing undulatory flight a few feet above 

 the females, in the paradise widow bird the displaying male soars up to a 

 very considerable height (said by Belcher, Bannerman, and others to be 

 as much as 300 feet), and then catapults down to a few feet from the 

 females. I never saw a cock go more than 50 or 60 feet up in the air, 

 and then descend rapidly. My observations agree with those of 

 Priest (1936, pp. 370-371), who observed a male in full nuptial plumage 

 apparently displaying to a number of females (or at least, birds in 

 "sparrowy" plumage) perched in a thorn bush near Beit Bridge, 

 Southern Rhodesia, on June 6. The male — 



flew to some 60 feet from the ground, and then commenced to progress with 

 small wing-beats, covering very little ground whilst these antics were being per- 

 formed. He would circle round in ever increasing rings, remaining at the same 

 altitude, and in the distance his flight might be compared to that of an aeroplane. 

 After a number of these evolutions had been made the bird descended rapidly to 

 the ground by a series of prolonged undulations, and finally alighted on a thorn 

 bush near the females. 



After a short pause the same display was again commenced, and the bird went 

 to an even higher altitude, in fact, to such a height that its small body was only 

 just visible, and if it were not for the long knife-bladed tail it possessed, and the 

 decided "bustle" near the base of the tail, one might easily lose sight of such a 

 small object. It was after 4 o'clock in the afternoon . . . [and] finally the male, 

 and either his wives or the combined broods of the last season, dispersed. 



Bannerman (1953, p. 1505) bore out the "even higher altitudes" 

 involved in this display, when he wrote that males may be "observed 

 to soar to a height of 300 feet or so and to hover in the air with flapping 

 wings, presently to descend with great velocity. The}^ have a habit, 

 too, of flying from one bush to another, perching for a while on the 

 topmost twig. The elongated tail makes the male a very conspicuous 

 creature when indulging in these nuptial antics." 



Schuster (1926, p. 728) gave a somewhat different account— writing 

 that the male flies from an elevated perch, slowly rises with rapid 

 wing beats, and then swoops down in a similarly slow descending 



