XANTHOPIIILUS CAPENSIS 463 



slightly duller ; remainder of plumage yellowish buff, shaded with ashy 

 brown on the sides of the crop and the Hanks. "Ins and bill brown" 

 (Stark). Wing 3-25. 2 , 3. 9. 74, Quatel Fontein (J. Butler). 



The Cape Golden-Weaver inhabits Western Cape Colony, 

 ranging northward to the Orange River and eastward to 

 Algoa Bay. 



" This large and i-obustly built species," Stark writes, " is 

 very generally distributed, in flocks of from ten to fifty or 

 sixty individuals, over Western Cape Colony, and although it 

 shows a certain preference for the neighbourhood of vleis and 

 marshy ground, it is also found in very arid localities at a 

 considerable distance from the nearest water. Its flight is 

 rather heavy and undulating. The Cape Weaver feeds to a 

 considerable extent upon seed and grain, but at times upon 

 insects. It is also fond of sipping the saccharine juice of the 

 Cape aloe and of various proteas, and individuals may be 

 sometimes met with their frontal feathers stained and matted 

 together with the mingled nectar and pollen of these plants. 



" They build their large kidney-shaped nests in colonies, 

 frequently suspending them from the boughs of a tree over- 

 hanging water, but just as often over dry ground. If unmo- 

 lested they prefer a tree standing close to a house as a nesting 

 site. The nests are compactly woven with coarse grass or 

 strips of reeds and sedge, the interior being warmly lined with 

 fine grass-stems as well as the flowering tops. The entrance 

 to the nest is from below, a narrow bar at the inner extremity 

 dividing it from the interior, and preventing the eggs or 

 young from falling out in windy weather. The eggs, four or 

 five in number, are of a uniform deep blue. They measure 

 0-90 X 0-66." 



Mr. Henry E. Harris, in his " Essays and Photographs," 

 o-ives some intei-esting illustrations of this bird and its nest, 

 and the following amusing account of its honeymoon : " I once 



