10 Mr. Austin Roberts on the 



to the present, is, from the description, obviously that of one 

 of the African Tailor-birds/' 



It was not until after many an unsuccessful search for tlie 

 nest of this bird that I one day stumbled upon a clue to its 

 peculiar breeding-habits. When talking about birds to an 

 old Natal colonist he happened to mention that the Zulus 

 have a saying that a young " King-red-beak '^ (Vidua princi- 

 palis) is reared out of every " rooibekje's " (Estrilda 

 astrildas) nest, they, as usual, imputing it to some super- 

 natural agency. Here I had the key to the solution of what 

 had for so long puzzled me, and I immediately acted on it. 

 It is well known how often the superstitions of the observant 

 natives have been found to be based upon fact, and this, I 

 have no doubt, is another instance. On examining my egg 

 collection I noted particularly one clutch which quite bore 

 out my expectations, viz., that the Pin-tailed Widow Bird is 

 in the habit of laying its eggs in the nest of some other 

 bird. This clutch was one of the Dufresne's Waxbill 

 (Estrilda dufresnii\ four eggs of which were of uniform 

 size — about the size one would expect ; but the fifth was 

 much larger, and clearly not an egg laid by the Waxbill. 

 Following this up, I took care to examine all Waxbills' 

 nests found about that time, from December to March, and 

 found that it was quite a common occurrence to find one or 

 more of the larger eggs and the usual type of those of the 

 Waxbills in the same nest. The mere fact of finding the 

 laroer eo-os in the same nest as the smaller ones did not, 

 however, prove much, but the following cases which came 

 to my notice quite convinced me that my theory was 

 correct. The first was the discovery of a nest of a Common 

 Waxbill [E. astrilda) containing five fledgelings ; four were 

 undoubtedly young Waxbills, the white spots on the gape — 

 which are always found on young birds of that genus — clearly 

 distinguishing them from the fifth, which, in addition to 

 lacking the white spots, differed in other respects. I left 

 the fledgelings, intending to get them a few days later when 

 they were more developed, but I was unfortunately delayed 

 and when I returned they had left the nest. Another day. 



