I030 



IVEA VER-BIRD 



Cheea procne. 

 (After Swainson.) 



The group of Widow-birds/ Fiduinx, is remarkable for the 

 extraordinary growth of the tail-feathers in the males at the breed- 

 ing-season. In the largest species, Vidua or Chera procne, the cock- 

 bird, which, with the exception of a scarlet 

 and buff bar on the upper wing- coverts, is 

 wholly lilack, there is simply a great elonga- 

 tion of the rectrices, and the same obtains in 

 Coliopasser or Fenthetria which is now generic- 

 ally separated ; but in T'. paradiiiea the form of 

 the tail is quite unique. The middle pair of 

 feathers have the webs greatly Avidened, and 

 through the twisting of the shafts their in- 

 ferior surfaces are vertically opposed. These 

 feathers are comparatively short, and end in a 

 eS hair-like filament. The next pair are produced 

 to the length of about a foot — the bird not 

 being so big as a Sparrow — and droop grace- 

 fully in the form of a sickle. But this is not 

 all : each has attached to its base a hair-like 

 filament of the same length as the feather, and 

 this filament originally adhered to and ran along the margin of 

 the outer web, only becoming detached when the feather is full 

 grown." In another species, V. prmcipcdis, the tAvo middle pairs of 

 rectrices are equally elongated, but their Avebs are convex, and the 

 outer pair contains the inner, 

 so that Avhen the mars-ins of 

 the tAvo pairs ax^e applied a 

 sort of cylinder is formed.^ 

 The females of all the 

 AVidoAv-birds differ greatly 

 in appearance from the 

 males, and are generally clothed in a plumage of mottled brown. 



The vast group of small seed-eating forms that make up the true 

 Estrildinai comprehend the numerous species so commonly seen in 

 cages, and knoAvn as Amadavats, Cowry or Nutmeg-birds, Wax- 

 bills, Cutthroats, Amadina fasciata, the Java Sparrow and 



^ It lias been ingeniously suggested that this name should be more correctly 

 written "Whydah bird — from the place on the "West Coast of Africa so named ; 

 but Edwards, who in 1745 figured one of the species, states that he was informed 

 that "the Portuguese call this bird the Widow, from its Colour and long Train" 

 {Nat. Hist. Birch, i. p. 86). 



^ This curious structure was long ago described by Brisson {Orn. iii. p. 123), 

 and again more fully by Strickland {Cmitr. Orn. 1850, pp. 88 and 149, pi. 59). 



^ Both these species seem to have been first described and figured in 1600 by 

 Aldrovandus (lib. xv. capp. 22, 23) from pictures sent to him by Ferdinando de' 

 Medici, duke of Tuscany. 



Vidua principalis. Fenthetria ardens. 



(After Swainson.) 



