BREEDING HABITS OF WEAVERBIRDS—FRIEDMANN 301 
The next subfamily is a much smaller assemblage—the buffalo 
weavers (Bubalornithinae)—containing only two species, each with 
several races. Unlike the typical weavers these birds do not construct 
nests of fine weaving and elaborate structure, but make rather bulky, 
massive nests of twigs and thorny branches, rough and untidy in 
general appearance, and not suspended from, but placed on top of, 
the branches of large trees (in my experience often baobabs). The 
birds are colonial and the nests are often placed so close together that 
they are actually in direct contact with one another. Jackson (p. 
1380) records that he saw where branches had given way under the 
combined weight of too many of these nests on several occasions. 
Brehm found as many as 18 nests in 1 mimosa tree in northeastern 
Africa. The nests are often 2 or 3 feet across and are used and 
repaired and added to year after year. Each nest of the black buffalo 
weaver (Bubalornis albirostris) contains two or more chambers, lined 
with grass and straw, each with an entrance facing away from the 
other. The only nests I ever saw of the other species, the white- 
headed buffalo weaver (Dinemellia dinemelli), had but a single cham- 
ber. There are descriptions in the literature of nests of Bubalornis 
containing more than two entrances. Priest (vol. 4, p. 220) writes 
of one that “‘. . . there were numerous entrance holes, and it looked 
as if about a dozen birds lived in each of these communal nests . . .” 
That the urge to build is extended in these weavers beyond the usual 
small part of the annual cycle of most birds, as it is in the Ploceinae, 
is indicated by some observations made in Darfur, in the Sudan, by 
Lynes, who noted that “‘. . . at all seasons we found these Textors 
(=Bubalornis) hanging about their everlasting great nest-clusters, 
into which, even in midwinter, birds with quite inactive sexual organs 
would sometimes carry twigs as if nesting . . .” 
Many years ago, in southwestern Africa, Andersson described the 
nests as follows: 
The collective nests consist externally of an immense mass of dry twigs and 
sticks, in which are to be found from four to six separate nests or holes of an oval 
form, composed of grass only, but united to each other by intricate masses of 
sticks, defying the ingress of any intruder except a small snake. In each of these 
separate holes are laid three or four eggs . . . I obtained no less than forty of 
these eggs . . . and on the following day the birds were busy in repairing one of 
the collective nests which had been injured during the collection of the eggs .. . 
I believe these nests are annually added to, for, so far as I have been able to see, 
the same nest is retained for several consecutive seasons. 
We do not have nearly as complete information on the buffalo 
weavers as on the typical ones, but what data are available indicate 
that the birds are colonial, that there is little or no observable evidence 
of any prenuptial fragmentation of wintering flocks, and that the 
males do at least part of the nest building. Whether they do it all 
or not is still unknown. 
