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former are almost black, while in the latter they are 

 brown ; the former also are darker on the crown, and 

 liave a more distinct yellow eye-streak than the Orange 

 have. 



To return for a moment to the Crimson-crowned 

 Bishops, (my " Large Bishops"), in the redder birds, pre- 

 sumably the older ones, the brown edges to wing and 

 tail feathers are much narrower than in the more 

 orange-coloured birds, and I take it that these birds, as 

 they advance in 3-ears, get redder and at the same time 

 gradually lose the brown edges to the black feathers. 



The " Larger Bishops " are five in number ; only one 

 lias as A-et come in colour, and has turned out not to be 

 a Bishop at all, but a Yellow-backed Whydali : a beautiful 

 bird, much more like a Bishop than a Wliydah in his 

 habits, ver}' keen on mealworms and other insects, and 

 continuall}' dancing and showing off to hens, or birds 

 he imagines to be hens, just as the Weavers do ; 

 and never, as far as I have seen, scratching on the 

 ground like a Whydah. The other four, I thought, 

 were hens, but as I have seen all of them si'ng and 

 dance, they are probably cocks. In appearance they 

 remind one forcibly of a hen Yellowhammer, the ground 

 colour being almost identical in the two birds, though of 

 course the markir.gs differ, in the one being similar to 

 those in other out-of-colour Weavers, and in the other 

 of the Bunting type. I should certainly recommend 

 anyone who comes across a large Bishop which suggests 

 to his mind a hen Yellowhammer, to buy it as being 

 almost certainly a most desirable addition to his 

 aviary. A more detailed description may be useful. 

 Below all yellowish, sparsely streaked, especially at 

 the sides, with brown ; above darker and more olive, 

 each feather having a brown centre streak, giving an 

 irregular mottled appearance ; the head is uniformly 

 speckled, with no suggestion even of the longitudinal 

 markings of the Paradise and Pintailed Whydahs ; the 

 bill is brown in the non-breeding plumage, black in the 

 full-colour stage. 



