124 AMADINA FASCIATA 
In West Africa the species is abundant in Senegambia only. 
A specimen procured by Mr. Bohndorff at Ngombi 
Manyanga, on the Lower Congo, has been referred to this 
Weaver by Hartlaub; I have not seen it, but would suggest 
that it possibly belongs to A. marginalis, a West African species 
with no known habitat. 
In the British Museum there is an immature specimen of 
A. fasciata which was obtained by Frank Oates at the Tati 
River, in Matabeleland. This specimen has been referred to 
A. erythrocephala (non Linn.), Oates, Matabeleland and Victoria 
Falls, p. 320 (1881). Otherwise the Common Ribbon-Waxbill 
was not known, as a native of South Africa, until Dr. W. L. 
Sclater procured a male and female at the Zambesi River, last 
February. 
Dr. Reichenow mentions Dar-es-Salam, Bagamoio, Usegua, 
Nguruman and Wembere, as localities where the species occurs 
in German Hast Africa, and remarks that the eggs are pure 
white, and measure, on an average, 0°75 & 0°5. 
Mr. Jackson obtained two specimens out of a small flock, 
as they came down to drink, at a rocky pool known as 
**Ungarunga,” in the bushy wilderness between the River 
Tsavo and Kibwezi. In Somaliland Dr. Donaldson Smith 
found the species breeding in August at Lammo and procured 
a pair at Goura. Mr. Hawker, while he was at Arabsiyo and 
Gebili, in December, 1897, ‘‘ got these birds at water-pools, 
where they came in flocks in the middle of the day.” From 
Southern Abyssinia Mr. Pease writes: ‘The Ribbon or Cut- 
throat Finch flies in dense packs and alights in close order on 
the tops of bushes and trees. It was seen only below the 
escarpment at Dalado.”’ In Shoa Antinori met with it in 
May, November and December, and Dr. Ragazzi found it in 
large flocks near Tofan in August. 
According to Heuglin the species is abundant along the 
a B 
