ESTRILDA CLARKEI 211 
Capt. Savile Reid writes: “Lieut. Giffard and I met 
with a small flock near Newcastle in September, very shy 
indeed, and obtained several specimens, both male and female. 
I was somewhat surprised at meeting with a large flock also, 
frequenting a reed-grown stream at Richmond Road, near 
Pietermaritzburg in December. They stuck pertinaciously to 
the thick covert, perching, however, on the reeds.” These 
were all he met with in Natal. I have named the species after 
my friend, Major 8. R. Clarke, who found it to be abundant 
in small flocks along the Ingogo River, and his brother took 
three clutches of eggs, all out of deserted nests of Pyromelana 
orta, in reed-beds near Bronker’s Spruit. Mr. Cavendish pro- 
cured the species near Beira on the Mozambique Coast, and 
Mr. Boyd Alexander, during his journey up the Zambesi, at 
Senna, where it was in company with ZH. astrild, ‘ frequenting 
the small waste islands in the river that are overgrown with 
tall grass, from which it is difficult to drive them away. The 
chattering notes are by no means unpleasant, and are far more 
musical than those of H. astrild. In immature males the upper 
and under tail-coverts are the first to assume the adult colour- 
ation, followed by the feathers of the sides of the chest and 
flanks becoming barred. In young birds the bill is_ black, 
while the iris is variable from a straw colour to a brown.” 
These Waxbills are apparently generally distributed over 
Nyasaland, where General Manning found them known to the 
natives as the ‘‘ Kajojola.”’ Bohm procured specimens at 
Karema, to the east of Lake Tanganyika, and at Qua Mpara 
on its western shores, frequenting the grass country and 
maize-fields, so that its occurrence at Icolo in Western Angola 
is not very surprising. 
To this species should belong the specimens obtained in the 
Victoria Nyanza district, by Fischer at Kagehi, and by Emin 
at Bukoba; for Mr. Jackson procured an example at Witu, 
