BREEDING HABITS OF WEAVERBIRDS—FRIEDMANN 307 
scale or sure foundation. It is safer, then, merely to summarize the 
picture in the one relatively well-known member. The picture of 
courtship display is markedly altered from what we are in the habit 
of considering normal for most passerine birds—males displaying to 
any females but their own mates; females apparently soliciting rather 
than permitting coition, a precarious monogamy with a tendency 
toward polyandry and promiscuity. 
The scaly weavers of the genus Sporopipes form a subfamily by 
themselves, the Sporopipinae. They are not too well known, but I 
have found them in very loose flocks or small assemblages in the dry 
thornbush veldt of the Transvaal, where they feed on the ground 
like the Passerinae. The South African species (Sporopipes squami- 
frons) breeds during the southern winter as a rule, but at times during 
the summer as well, suggesting a not too well delimited nesting time. 
These birds are not colonial breeders, but build their roughly globular 
nests of grass stems and fine twigs, with a fairly pointed lateral en- 
trance, in the middle of the dense thorny branches of shrubs and low 
trees. Two nests that I found were less globular than published 
descriptions indicate is usual. They were somewhat similar to the 
untidy structures of the house sparrow, but smaller, slightly more 
compact, and less irregular in shape. In my field notes I described 
them as horizontal cylinders rather poorly closed at one end, and made 
of grasses, fine twigs, straws, etc. One nest containing three eggs 
was being very timidly guarded by two of the birds, presumably a 
pair (the sexes look alike). The birds would not stay near the nest 
while I was close to it, but returned to it as I walked away. Nothing 
seems to be on record concerning courtship, mating, or territorial 
behavior in any of the scaly weavers. 
We now come to the subfamily Viduinae, the indigo birds and the 
widow birds, containing a dozen species, three of which are definitely 
known to be parasitic and the others are suspected of having similar 
breeding habits. This group is somewhat intermediate between the 
Ploceinae and the next subfamily, the Estrildinae. Like the mem- 
bers of the Ploceinae, the Viduinae take 2 years to acquire adult 
plumage, and do not breed until then (the Estrildinae breed when 1 
year old, as do the majority of small passerine birds). The adult 
males have a breeding plumage in which they are very different from 
the brown, streaky hens and year-old birds, the former of which they 
resemble in the nonbreeding plumage. (The Estrildinae do not 
show any seasonal plumage change as arule.) The best known of the 
Viduinae is the pin-tailed widow bird, Vidua macroura, and the fol- 
lowing description of its habits is taken largely from my field notes 
coupled with pertinent data in the literature. 
Vidua macroura is a gregarious bird and is usually seen in flocks of 
from 5 to 50 birds, depending on the season. In the breeding season 
