20 VIDUA SERENA 
In the Transvaal, according to Dr. Rendall, the species is 
common in the Barberton district and locally known as the 
** Kaffir Fink.” Along the Zambesi, Sir John Kirk records 
it as “‘common everywhere, not limited to grass plains, but 
frequenting woods and coming near houses,” and Mr. Boyd 
Alexander writes : “ Breeds in large colonies, suspending their 
nests from the topmost twigs of tall acacia trees. They keep 
much to the waste plots of land near villages. The males have 
a laboured flight, as if they were weighed down by their long 
tails, which they commence to assume towards the end of 
October ; in a flock the males predominate to a very large 
extent over the females.” 
It might appear that in this last sentence the words 
‘*males”’ and ‘‘ females’ have been misplaced in the printing, 
but possibly at the time he made these notes the females were 
sitting on their eggs, 
In North-east Africa, according to Heuglin, the males 
during the breeding season may often be seen perched on the 
crown of a tree, singing. He further remarks that he never 
met with the species nesting on the ground, as Layard and 
Ayres did in South Africa, but, in the beginning of the rainy 
season, found the nest suspended some five or six feet over 
water; from the end twigs of a bough some three or four leaves 
were woven together at their ends, forming a bag lined with 
cotton and hair, with the interior cavity rather deep. 
From Central and Hastern Africa, where the species is about 
equally abundant everywhere, there have been very few notes 
made of any interest; Fischer remarks that the birds are said 
by the natives to be polygamous, and he observes that the cocks 
were generally accompanied by two or three hens, or feeding 
in flocks in the open country. Dr. Hinde, while he was at 
Machako’s, found flocks of these birds common in the swamps 
and reed-beds; Mr. Pease met with them, generally near 
