VIDUA FISCHERI 23 
Colesberg, which is the only instance I know of its having 
been met with in Cape Colony. Mr. Barratt found it dis- 
tributed over the country from Kimberley to Rustenburg, but 
considered it to be of rare occurrence in the latter district. 
According to Stark, who met with the species in Natal only, 
it is polygamous, each male, in spring, being accompanied by 
ten or twelve females. At this season the beautiful cocks are 
very pugnacious, and are constantly fighting and chasing one 
another, their long tails by no means incommoding their flight, 
as is the case with V. serena. They are, indeed, of much more 
active habits than are the latter birds. Their call-note is 
a sharp chirp occasionally uttered, but the cock in moments of 
excitement indulges in a short and rather feeble song. ‘They 
feed almost entirely on grass seeds. 
Buckley found the species at the Limpopo. Oates collected 
four specimens at Tati in Matabeleland, in which country 
Jameson and Ayres saw several chasing each other near 
Selenia Pan and found them fairly abundant at Kanye, affect- 
ing well-wooded country with open patches of grass-land. 
Vidua fischeri. 
Linura fischeri, Reichen. Orn. Centralb. 1882, p. 91 Usegua; Sharpe, 
Cat. B. M. xiii. p. 210 (1890) Kilimanjaro; Reichen. Vog. Afr. iii. 
p. 222 (1904). 
Vidua (Linura) fischeri, Reichen. J. f. O. 1882, pl. 2, fig. 1. 
Vidua fischeri, Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 314 (1896). 
Male in breeding plumage. Forehead and crown sandy buff; remainder 
of the head and the entire neck jet black; mantle, wings and short tail- 
feathers more dusky black, with some narrow pale brown edges to the 
feathers ; lower back and upper tail-coverts pale brown, with narrow dark 
centres to most of the feathers; the four narrow elongated tail-feathers 
sandy buff of the same shade as the crown, breast, thighs and under tail- 
coverts ; flanks slightly streaked with dark brown; under surface of wings 
black, with some narrow buff edges to the coverts. ‘Iris brown; bill and 
legs orange red.” Total length 10-1 inches, culmen 0°35, wing 2°6, tail 7-7, 
tarsus 0°6. ¢, 9.12.0. Hrrer Goata (Pease). 
