56 COLIUSPASSER JACKSONI 
colour of the under wing-coverts, and the dark stripes on the crop and sides 
of body. ‘‘Iris brown; bill, tarsi and feet pinkish brown.” Wing 3:2, 
tail 2:1. Nairobe (Mackinder). 
Immature male. Very similar to the adult female, but with the crop and 
flanks more striped. 
Adult male in winter. Similar to the immature bird, but distinguished 
by having the least series of wing-coverts pale fawn colour. 
Jackson's Whydah inhabits British Hast Africa to the east 
of Victoria Nyanza between 3° 8. lat. and 1° N. lat. 
Mr. Jackson procured the types, a male and female, July 
22, 1890, out of flocks frequenting the high grass in Masailand, 
and they were then in full breeding plumage. In October of 
the previous year he shot a male in the mottled brown 
plumage in the Kikuyu country. He next mentions the 
species as very plentiful in large flocks at Lake Elmateita in 
April, 1896, also in the Nandi district at an elevation of 6,000 
feet, June 2, 1898, and writes: ‘* Now commencing to breed. 
I found the nests, but only one contained a single egg. The 
nest is rather a flimsy structure, made of fine dry grass and 
lined with the seed-heads of fine grass, with an entrance at 
the side, like the nest of a Willow-Wren. It is placed on the 
edge of swampy places, but not on the coarse herbage of the 
swamps, within an inch or two of the ground. The birds bend 
down the surrounding blades of grass and weave them into the 
top of the nest, which makes the latter not only more difficult 
to detect, but also renders it more waterproof. Like Penthe- 
tria laticauda, the cock-birds make playgrounds for themselves, 
on which they dance up and down on and off throughout the 
day, but more vigorously in the early mornings and late even- 
ings. Yesterday evening I watched several within a radius 
of 100 yards; and a truly ridiculous sight it was to see 
these pitch-black, curious-shaped objects, bobbing up and 
down out of the grass. From an ant-heap close by I watched 
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