44.0 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
order Asphodelew ; but as our Flora has not yet been published up 
to that order, I cannot give you its specific name with any degree of 
certainty. It is not the tall aloe, like one that grows in our forests ; 
but the dwarf, thick-leaved, stemless Sanseviera, with the red edges 
to its leaves. The whole leaf is full of strong fibres, but from its 
tough nature the birds are only enabled to strip off the two marginal 
threads; and to construct one of these nests many thousands of 
Sanseviera leaves are deprived of their red-edged fibres; and in the 
neighbourhood of one or two of these nests you will not find a 
perfect leaf on any of these plants.” 
“In Natal,” writes Mr. Ayres, “these birds are gregarious, and 
are troublesome to all cereal crops, as they live almost entirely upon 
grain and grass-seeds. They build their nests invariably amongst 
reeds which grow in swamps and shallow water. Whilst building, 
they have a curious habit of hanging by their feet from their nests, 
and, with wings extended, drooping and fluttering, they sway them- 
selves slowly from side to side; this has a very pretty effect when 
a number of nests are close together, and all in about the same 
stage of building.” The same gentleman gives a long note on their 
breeding’in the Transvaal, as follows :—“ In the beginning of August, 
1871, I noticed that a pair of these birds had commenced build- 
ing, hanging their nest on the pendulous twigs of a weeping-willow 
right over one of the secluded back streets of the town of 
Potchefstroom, at a height of perhaps twenty feet from the ground, 
the tree being large and one of a row. At this period the cock 
bird had not assumed the yellow plumage, or the slightest symp- 
tom of it that I could see, but was in appearance similar to the 
female. The building of the nest proceeded very slowly, and by the 
beginning of September it was not more than one-fourth com- 
pleted, the pair of birds still remaining in the same plumage; but 
at this stage the nest was pulled down by some boys, and of 
course the birds left the place. At the same date (the beginning 
of September) I explored the reeds at the river and found many 
nests of this species in various early stages, and saw several cock 
birds in full yellow plumage. About the middle of September I 
again went to the river and found a good many nests among the 
reeds, but none finished or containing eggs; the nests are almost 
always hung between two reeds, sometimes where the water is knee- 
deep, at others where it is waist-deep, and sometimes where they 
