308 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
in South Africa, where seasons are definite, the flocks tend to break 
up and the birds pair off more or less. Yet it is not uncommon to 
see small flocks all through the breeding season. Such flocks usually 
contain but one full-plumaged male and the rest. of the birds are in the 
brown hen type of plumage. In some cases I shot into the flocks and 
found that the brown birds were year-old males, but in two cases the 
birds proved to be females with fairly enlarged ovaries. It seems, 
therefore, that this bird is somewhat polygamous, although I should 
judge from most of the cases I have observed (and they are many) 
that it is frequently, if not usually, more or less monogamous. In 
equatorial Africa all the individuals of the species in any one locality 
do not breed at the same time and these flocks usually contain a 
breeding pair and either year-old birds or nonbreeding adults. The 
lack of definite seasons complicates things superficially to the extent 
that the apparent state of affairs has no real relation to the actual 
conditions. 
This widow bird is largely terrestrial in habit and gathers most, if 
not all, of its food on or near the ground. However, in Natal, at 
least, during the southern winter the birds go about in large flocks and 
spend much time in the trees, where they act and sound not unlike 
small finches such as the North American redpoll, Acanthis linaria. 
They are by no means confined to trees and are found in tall grass 
and in reeds along stream banks. During the breeding season the 
males often use isolated trees as perches from which to sing and to 
watch over their territories, but the birds spend by far the greatest 
part of the time on the ground. 
On November 24, at Woodbush, Transvaal, I saw an adult male 
in full breeding plumage. It was perched on a bush in an open 
grassy field, and as I approached it flew off to a nearby bush and then 
to another not far off as I came close again. It made a small circling 
flight and came back to the original bush. On and off during the 
rest of the day I found it there each time I visited the spot and found 
by repeated trials that it could not be induced to leave it. It had 
definitely established its territory there, and apparently the bush in 
which it was first found was its singing perch. The next day I spent 
a couple of hours watching it and tried to make it fly off, but it would 
not go more than a hundred feet and then circle back gradually. 
There was a single hen bird in the immediate vicinity. I shot the 
male and found the testes were much enlarged. The plumage was 
still very fresh; in fact the long central rectrices still retained a little 
of their sheaths and one of them was so loose that it came out when I 
skinned the bird. 
In the same region I watched two other males that were established 
in their individual territories. One of them was watched for 3 
successive days and was apparently without a mate as yet. It had a 
