I028 



WE A VER-BIRD 



WEAVER-BIRD, the namc^ by which a group of some 250 

 species is now usually called, from the elaborately interwoven 

 nests that many of them build, some of the structures being of the 

 most marvellous kind. By the older systematists such of these 

 birds as were then known were distributed among the genera 

 Griolus, Loxia, Emheriza and Fringilla; and it was Cuvier who in 

 1817 first brought together the scattered forms, comprising them 

 in a genus Ploceus. Others Avere subsequently refeiTed to its 



Sycobrotus. 



(After Swainson.) 



Ploceus. 



neighbourhood, and especially the genus Vidua ("Widow-bird) with 

 its allies, so as to make of them a subfamily Floceitm, which in 

 1847 was raised by Prof. Cabanis to the rank of a Family I'loceidx, 

 equivalent to that of Fringillidx (Finch) in which they had been 

 included, on the ground that the Finches have but nine primary 

 quills in their wing, while the Weaver-birds have ten. Following 

 Sundevall, Dr. Sharpe (C(tt. B. Br. Mus. xiii. pp. 198-511) divides 

 the Floceidai into two subfamilies — Fiduinx (with 12 genera and 



Pyrenestes. 



(After Swainson.) 



Pyromel.ema. 



156 species) having the outermost primary very short, and Floceinx 

 (with 20 genera and 92 species) in which it is large — a proceeding 

 that is confessedly artificial and not to be recommended, since it 

 obscures the very natural group of Viduinx proper by associating 



hardly be said to have any near ally, for neither of the Neotropical and Antil- 

 lean genera, Ptilogonys and Mijiodectcs (often erroneonsly spelt Myiadcstcs), can 

 as yet be safely declared of kin to it, as has been alleged. 



^ First bestowed in this form apparently by Stephens in 1826 {Gen. Zool. xiv. 

 p. 34) ; but in 1782 Latham {Synopsis, i. p. 435) liad called the " Troupiale dxh 

 Hinigal" of Buffon the "Weever Oriolo," from its habit of entwining the wires 

 of the cage in which it was kept with such vegetable fibres as it could get, and 

 hence in 1788 Gmelin named it Oriolus tcxtor. In 1800 Daudin used the term 

 " Tisserin" for several species of the Linnwan genus Loxia, and this was adopted 

 some years later by Cuvier as the equivalent of his Ploceus, as mentioned in the text. 



