44 Mr. Cx. L. Bates — Field-Notes on the 



But I have found undoubted eggs of the Ngas; never 

 more than two in a nest. Measurements of seven such eggs 

 vary but little, 20-22 mm. in length by 14-15 mm. in 

 breadth. 



[Nine eggs are of a long, rather pointed oval shape, and 

 possess a certain amount of gloss. They present three types 

 of coloration, viz. : pure white ; pale bluish-green, finely and 

 rather sparingly freckled all over with lilac-grey and umber- 

 brown ; and pale pinkish-white, thickly freckled all over with 

 light red and pale lavender-grey. — O.-G.] 



1359. Ploceus cucullatus. [Nga'a (pi. Benga'a).] 



Hyphantornis cucullatus Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 348. 



These Weavers follow man in all his migrations in this 

 country as inevitably as do rats and sparrows. No sooner is a 

 clearing made and stakes set in the ground for a new village 

 than " Benga'a " begin to build in the nearest tree. A 

 plantain or a palm-tree is chosen by preference, as furnishing 

 not only a site but material close to hand for the nests ; but 

 any kind of tree will do. The more populous the village and 

 the greater the hubbub of village life, the better are the birds 

 pleased, adding to the noise their own shrill chatter. This 

 strange predilection for public and noisy places, so contrary 

 to the instinct of most birds, is not hard to account for, since 

 these birds thus incidentally obtain man's protection against 

 birds and beasts of prey. No place is so safe from hawks 

 and snakes as the village street. Though boys kill a good 

 many Benga'a, especially at planting-time, when they pull 

 up the young shoots of corn as soon as they appear above 

 ground, in order to get the sprouting grain beneath, yet the 

 number killed by man does not seem to affect the population 

 of the colonies. Killing numbers of them will not frighten 

 them away, and tearing down their nests only makes them 

 build the more furiously. They have a perfect mania for 

 building, and when not building new nests are all the time 

 repairing the old ones. They often destroy palm-trees by 

 stripping them bare of their leaves. 



One day I watched a boy pull down the Benga'a's nests 



