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thorn-trees ; they are loosely constructed of fine grass, 

 with a smooth surface both inside and out. Their 

 eggs also are white. 



The nests of the Combasous (^Hypochcera ce?ied) 

 are very untidy structures recalling those of the 

 House-Sparrow, and are built in holes in the thatch 

 of roofs or in mud walls; they consist merely of a 

 rough lining of dry grass, with a heap of the same 

 mixed with tree-cotton, feathers, donkey- and slieeps- 

 hairs and perhaps a small piece of rag, on which the 

 white eggs are laid. The male during the breeding 

 season appears to take very little, if any, share in the 

 labour of nest-building or in tending the eggs or 

 young, but leaves it all to his harem, each member of 

 which builds and looks after her own untidy domicile. 



The Paradise Whydah ( Vidua paradisea) makes a 

 comparatively large domed nest with a flattenedbottom 

 and a side-entrance, suspended between two or three 

 reeds or long grass-stalks, and formed by irregularly 

 woven long grass as the main framework, with an 

 inner lining of finer and shorter lengths : the nests 

 are built in groups, the property of one or more males 

 and their half-dozen consorts, and are always situated 

 in the centre of a swamp, or at any rate in some place 

 where the ground remains covered with water until 

 the very end of the breeding season. The only nests 

 which I have seen (and which were only accessible by 

 wading) were old ones, but only just vacated by the 

 young, and I am practically certain that they belonged 

 to these birds, — though unfortunately I could find no 

 eggs and never actuall}' saw a hen leave any of the 

 nests, — as the only birds about this particular patch 

 of reeds were a number of out-of-colour Paradise 

 Whydahs, (presumably both hens and young), with a 

 few adult full-coloured cocks. 



The Yellow- backed Whydah ( V. macrura) also, I 

 think, makes a similar but larger nest : at least they 



