300 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
nests tend to be grouped together, and are usually about 20 to 30 feet away from 
the nearest ring if males have been dancing previously in the neighborhood, i.e. 
well outside the territory boundaries. 
In connection with the development of courtship posturings, it may 
be pointed out that, unlike the members of the arboreal Ploceinae, 
the whydahs, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the bishop weavers, 
have very marked sexual dimorphism in the breeding plumage of the 
adults and many species have elongated or otherwise specialized 
plumes in the nuptial dress of the males. In the nonbreeding season 
the sexes generally look alike. 
Before going on to the next subfamily, we may briefly summarize 
the situation in the typical weavers (Ploceinae). Many of the species 
are colonial (which means, in effect, that in most of them the individual 
nesting territories are nonexistent), and in those species that have been 
most fully observed the nests are built largely or wholly by the males. 
Furthermore, in some forms it seems that the males are regularly 
polygamous and that the number of mates each one acquires depends 
on the number of nests he has been able to provide for his mates. 
From the standpoint of our hypothetical “standard” picture of the 
cycle of breeding behavior patterns this implies that the first stage— 
migration or the fragmentation of flocks into individuals or pairs—is 
omitted, that territoriality is likewise skipped, and that the usual 
sequence of courtship and nest building is reversed. As we have noted, 
the actual courtship and mating takes place in and about the newly 
completed nests the males have constructed. The Ploceinae take 2 
years to acquire adult plumage and to come into breeding condition. 
This summary is correct as far as it goes, but there is still one more 
variation in the reproductive behavior pattern exhibited in this sub- 
family. One species, sometimes called Rendall’s seed-eater, some- 
times (and more properly) the cuckoo finch, Anomalospiza wmberbis, 
a bird with no very close relatives, but apparently nearer to the bishop 
weavers than to any other assemblage, is wholly devoid of any nest- 
building or incubating or rearing instincts, and is, in short, parasitic. 
It is still very imperfectly known, and all that may be said with any 
certainty is that it is parasitic on small ground-nesting (or near the 
ground nesting) warblers of the genera Cisticola and Prinia. (Six 
species of the former and one, possibly two, of the latter genus are 
known as hosts of the cuckoo finch.) As Delacour (19438, p. 71) has 
recently pointed out, the fact that Anomalospiza agrees with the 
Viduinae in being parasitic does not necessarily imply close relation- 
ship to the members of the latter group. In most respects it seems 
best placed, taxonomically, with the Ploceinae, but, it must be ad- 
mitted, is an aberrant member of that group. It is aslightly gregari- 
ous bird, living, at least in the nonbreeding season, in loose flocks. 
Nothing is on record concerning its courtship, sexual relations, or 
territorial habits. 
