RET 1a a st ene nerrarocaes 
HYPHANTORNIS VELATUS. 439 
Senor Anchieta has met with this species in several parts of 
Benguela, at Capangombe, at Caconda, and at Quillengues. 
424. HyPHANTORNIS VITELLINUS, Licht. Lichtenstein’s Weaver Bird. 
This is a small species with the sides of the head and the chin 
black ; the mantle is olive yellow slightly mottled with brown 
centres to the feathers. It is distinguished by only having the 
upper half of the throat black. Itisan inhabitant of north-eastern 
and of western Africa, but was found on the Zambesi by the 
Livingstone expedition. 
425. HypHantornis vetatus, Vieill. Black-fronted Weaver Bird. 
Hyphantornis mariquensis, Layard, B. 8. Afr. p. 182. 
Although of moderate size, like H. vitellinus, the present bird is 
distinguished by having the entire throat black: it has also the fore- 
head black, but this black colour is strictly confined to the forehead 
itself. We have adopted the name of velatus of Vieillot, and it is 
the H. mariquensis of Sir Andrew Smith’s “ Illustrations”? where 
the species is represented in the undress livery in which, strange 
to say, it sometimes breeds, as we have been assured by Messrs. 
Ortlepp, Moffatt, and Dr. Exton, all reliable observers. We have 
received the species from Kuruman and Colesberg, and we also 
found it abundantly at Nel’s Poort, nesting on the trees overhanging 
the rivers and water-courses. Theirnests are shaped just like those 
of H. capensis, and suspended in the same manner. The eggs are 
subject to great variation: some are green, spotted with reddish- 
brown ; others are cream-coloured, minutely spotted with reddish- 
brown or light-purple, or heavily blotched with the same. We have 
taken eggs with green and cream-coloured grounds out of the same 
nest: axis, 11'’’ ; diam., 7’”’. 
Mrs. Barber writes from “The Highlands,” near Grahamstown : 
“‘T send herewith the nest of a kind of finch (a yellow bird, with 
a black head). They are common, and most likely you know both 
the bird and its nest, though I do not suppose that you know the 
material that the nest is made of; for in our youthful, bird-nesting 
days it puzzled us amazingly, until at length we found out the secret, 
and then I do assure you we were very proud of it, and gave our- 
selves much credit for finding out what no one had been able to tell 
us, which was, that the nest of this bird was made of the fibres of the 
leaves of a species of Sanseviera, a plant belonging to the natural 
he 
