86 PYROMELANA STRICTA 
the Transvaal and some parts of the Orange Free State these 
little Bishop-birds collect in immense flocks towards autumn 
and remain together until the following spring, when they 
break up into smaller companies, many of which appear to 
migrate, while others remain to breed in small colonies in the 
swamps or among reeds on the borders of vleis or streams. 
During autumn and winter these birds feed chiefly on fallen 
grass-seeds; they are also accused of doing considerable 
damage to the corn, and especially to millet-crops, but in 
summer they subsist largely on insects, and feed their young 
almost entirely on caterpillars and soft-bodied larve. Nothing 
can exceed the beauty of the males in their newly-acquired 
spring plumage of brilliant yellow and glossy black, and one 
never tires of watching these feathered gems as they hover 
with puffed-out plumage over the reeds or grass in which their 
mates are hidden, looking, as Ayres aptly remarks, ‘like balls 
of black and yellow floating slowly about over the grass.’ 
“The nests are neatly woven out of long pieces of fine 
grass in the form of deep purses, or half-closed bags, sus- 
pended from three or four reeds, usually over water. The 
eggs are laid about the end of December in the Northern 
Transvaal, but not until two months later in the North of 
Damaraland. ‘They are four or five in number, of a glossy 
white, dotted and sprinkled all over with very small specks 
of black or dark brown. They measure on the average 
0°73 X 0°52.” 
Pyromelana stricta. 
Huplectes strictus, Heugl. Syst. Uebers. p. 39 (1856, nom. nud.) Semien ; 
Hartl. Orn. W. Afr. p. 129 (1857). 
Pyromelana stricta, Reichen. Vog. Afr. iii. p. 115 (1904). 
? Fringilla abyssinica, Gm. 8. N. ii. p. 927 (1788) Abyssima. 
Euplectes scioanus, Salvad. Ann. Mus. Genov. 1884, p. 185 Shoa. 
