VIDUA SERENA 19 
Mr. Layard remarks that it is known to the Dutch colonists 
as “Koning Roodebec,” or “King of the Red-bills,” and is 
found in small flocks throughout Cape Colony. He was one 
of the first to observe that the males assume their remarkable 
plumage for the breeding season only, after which they moult 
back into the winter garb, which much resembles that of 
the female. During the autumn and winter months they often 
feed in flocks, 1m company with other Finches, and according to 
Stark, “in summer they disperse in small parties, each con- 
sisting of a single male and from ten to forty or even fifty 
females.” 
Mr. T. Ayres writes: “The male of this species has a 
curious habit of hovering over its mate when she is feeding on 
the ground, bobbing up and down as you see the May-flies and 
midgets do on a summer’s evening in England. This exercise 
he generally continues some minutes without resting.” Stark 
observes: ‘‘ Like the other Weaver-birds, the present species 
feeds upon small seeds, principally grass seeds, also upon small 
insects and their eggs. Its ordinary call-note is a sharp chirp, 
but in spring the male utters a soft warbling song from the top 
of a bush or tall weed. In Natal this species breeds during 
the wet season, from November to the end of February or 
beginning of March. A somewhat openly woven domed nest of 
fine grass is suspended between the stems of a thick grass tuft 
a few inches off the ground, the ends of the growing grass 
being tied together over the nest so as to completely conceal it. 
The only nest that I have seen contained young birds from 
three to four in number.” 
The egg is glossy greyish white, with underlying violet 
marks and clear black or dark brown elongated surface-marks, 
evenly distributed. It measures 0°68 X 0°50. The type of 
Estrelda carmelita, Hartl., is a young bird of this species, in the 
uniform brown plumage; it was shot by Mr. T. Ayres on the 
banks of Little Bushman River, near Maritzburg, in Natal. 
