BREEDING HABITS OF WEAVERBIRDS—FRIEDMANN 297 
above the entrance. One male was found to have three mates at the 
same time, and may have had still others. The males have very 
definite territories and the hens apparently seek out the established 
cock birds. Actual mating takes place when the nest is in process of 
being built by the male, but the female has, in all probability, already 
settled in his territory for some time before this. Incubation of the 
eggs and feeding of the young are solely the business of the hens, 
which incubate chiefly at night, the warmth from the sun presumably 
being sufficient for the eggs during the daylight hours. 
Less complete data on the whydahs (Coliuspasser ardens and C. 
jackson) suggest that these birds are monogamous. Thus, in writing 
of the latter species Jackson (1938, pp. 1469-1470) states that he re- 
gards the evidence against the supposed pologamy of this whydah as 
conclusive. Near Nairobi, Kenya Colony, he had extremely favor- 
able conditions for watching this species within a fenced-in enclosure 
with open grass, outside of which enclosure the grass had been burned. 
In such a small area it was easy enough to count and mark with a stick each 
dancing ground. This done, the whole area was hurriedly quartered with the aid 
of two boys to move and frighten away all the birds present; we then retired a 
short distance, sat down and waited for them to return. The cocks very soon 
appeared; the females were much more wary, but returned in due course. Some 
of them settled in the grass and remained there, evidently on their nests, while 
others were occupied in going to and fro with fine grass in their bills; these latter 
rarely remained hidden for more than a minute at atime. Next day we returned, 
and by quartering every yard of the area we discovered four nests with three 
eggs, three with two eggs, one with a single egg and three not yet completed. 
Each nest when found was marked by tying a knot in a wisp of tall grass close by. 
At the end of a week we again returned; but no more nests were found, and on no 
occasion did the females equal the number of cocks, but I accounted for this 
through my failing to detect one or two of them as they sneaked back to their 
nests containing incubated eggs .. . 
At least it seems from this account that there were not more hens 
than cocks as would have to be the case in a polygamous species. 
Unlike many of the weavers whose courtship is performed at the 
newly constructed nest, a group of males of Jackson’s whydah makes 
a roughly circular dancing area by breaking or snipping off the tall 
grass to make a clearing of from 2 to 6 feet in diameter. In the 
middle of this clearing are left standing a sizable number of grasses 
forming a dense tuft into which the males partly excavate little re- 
cesses. Then a number of males go through a leaping peformance, 
generally with no hens around to watch them. Jackson describes the 
position assumed by the cock as follows: 
The head is thrown back like that of a proud Turkey-cock, the beak being held 
horizontally; the feet hang downward, the tail is held straight up till it touches 
the ruff at the base of the head and neck, the ends of the feathers falling in a curve 
downward, with the exception of two tail-feathers which are held straight out 
and downward. 
