136 NIGRITA 
black on the middle of the chest. ‘Iris crimson; bill white, base of lower 
mandible tinged with yellowish green ; legs brownish flesh colour.’ Total 
length 4:8 inches, culmen 0°6, wing 2:7, tail2-0, tarsus 0-7. 3g, 2, 14.3. 87. 
Kilimanjaro (Jackson). 
Cabanis’s Social-Waxbill inhabits Hastern Africa between 
6° S. lat. and 8° N. lat. 
In its most southern known range, Fischer discovered the 
type on the Pare Plateau, and remarked that the sexes are 
alike in plumage. He considered the species rare in the 
country he traversed between the Pare Mountains and the 
Pangani; they were frequenting the acacia and euphorbia 
trees, where he found a colony of four or six of their nests, 
which much resembled those of P. arnaudi, and had two 
entrance passages, one leading into the breeding chamber 
for the hen, the other into a guard-room for the cock. He 
also found the species at Loeru and Kibaia, breeding in 
September. Mr. Jackson obtained specimens on the Sagouvi 
Mountains of the Kilimanjaro district, where a small colony 
were constructing nests in a table-topped mimosa tree, in 
March, 1887; so these birds have apparently a spring as 
well as an autumn breeding season. In the British Museum 
there are two specimens of Lord Delamere’s collecting, from 
the Waso Nyro River, and three of Mr. Gillett’s from Darar, 
in Somaliland. In this latter country the species has also 
been met with by Dr. Donaldson Smith at Dabulli. 
Genus II]. NIGRITA. 
Bill widened, broader than deep at the nostrils, and compressed at the 
sides of the end half; nostrils open just in front of the frontal feathers; 
cutting edge of upper mandible festooned. Wing rounded; primaries 
1, small, narrow and sharply pointed; 2, shorter than 5; 3 and 4, longest. 
Tail fan-shaped, feathers rather broad. Tarsi and feet moderate. Plumage 
of sexes generally, but not always, alike ; tail entirely black. 
a 
