1030 WEAVER-BIRD 
The group of Widow-birds,! Vidwine, is remarkable for the 
extraordinary growth of the tail-feathers in the males at the breed- 
ing-season. In the largest species, Vidua or Chera procne, the cock- 
bird, which, with the exception of a scarlet 
and buff bar on the upper wing-coverts, is 
wholly black, there is simply a great elonga- 
tion of the rectrices, and the same obtains in 
Coliopasser or Penthetria which is now generic- 
ally separated ; but in /. paradisea the form of 
the tail is quite unique. The middle pair of 
feathers have the webs greatly widened, and 
through the twisting of the shafts their in- 
ferior surfaces are vertically opposed. These 
feathers are comparatively short, and end in a 
<\, hair-like filament. The next pair are produced 
to the length of about a foot—the bird not 
being so big as a Sparrow—and droop grace- 
fully in the form of a sickle. But this is not 
all: each has attached to its base a hair-like 
filament of the same length as the feather, and 
this filament originally adhered to and ran along the margin of 
the outer web, only becoming detached when the feather is full 
grown.” In another species, . principalis, the two middle pairs of 
rectrices are equally elongated, but their webs are convex, and the 
outer paircontains the inner, 
so that when the margins of 
the two pairs are applied a 
sort of cylinder is formed.® 
The females of all the 
Widow-birds differ greatly 
in appearance from the 
males, and are generally clothed in a plumage of mottled brown. 
The vast group of small seed-eating forms that make up the true 
Estrildine comprehend the numerous species so commonly seen in 
cages, and known as AMADAVATS, Cowry or NUTMEG-BIRDS; WAX- 
BILLS, CUTTHROATS, Amadina fasciata, the JAVA SPARROW and 
CHERA PROCNE. 
(After Swainson.) 
VIDUA PRINCIPALIS. PENTHETRIA ARDENS, 
(After Swainson.) 
It has been ingeniously suggested that this name should he more correctly 
written Whydah bird—from the place on the West Coast of Africa so named ; 
but Edwards, who in 1745 figured one of the species, states that he was informed 
that ‘‘the Portuguese call this bird the Widow, from its Colour and long Train” 
(Nat. Hist. Birds, i. p. 86). 
2 This curious structure was long ago described by Brisson (Orn. iii. p. 123), 
and again more fully by Strickland (Contr. Orn. 1850, pp. 88 and 149, pl. 59). 
% Both these species seem to have heen first described and figured in 1600 by 
Aldrovandus (lib. xv. capp. 22, 23) from pictures sent to him by Ferdinando de’ 
Medici, duke of Tuscany. 
