BREEDING HABITS OF WEAVERBIRDS—FRIEDMANN oll 
as far as immature “hangers-on” are concerned; courtship display well 
developed in all species; nest-building, incubation, and rearing instincts 
completely lacking in three members (V. macroura, paradisea, and 
regia) and probably in the others as well. The young of the three known 
parasitic species do not seem to evict or to starve out their nest mates 
of the host species, but may grow up in apparent amity with them. 
Roberts (1939, pp. 106-107) finds that while this is so, the female 
parasite usually destroys an egg of the host when depositing its own 
in the nest, but no such observations have been published. Usually 
there is but a single egg of the parasite in any one nest, but Roberts 
has found one instance where “‘five eggs of the common waxbill were 
all replaced by eggs of the Pin-tailed Widow-Bird.” Delacour and 
other writers have implied that the Viduinae are parasitic chiefly on 
waxbils, and even go so far as to suggest that each of the Viduinae has 
its particular Estrildinae host species, but this is by no means definitely 
established. Thus, the pin-tailed widow bird is known to parasitize 
at least nine species of Hstrilda and Lagonosticta, and two ploceine 
weavers, Coliuspasser ardens and Amauresthes fringilloides, while there 
is some evidence that Vidua regia lays its egg in the nest of a warbler, 
Prinia flavicans. 
The last subfamily of weaverbirds, comprising the waxbills, grass 
finches, and mannikins, is the Estrildinae. Delacour (1943, pp. 71-72) 
has recently summarized the characteristics of this group as follows: 
Small weaver-finches of highly specialized color pattern, never showing a primi- 
tive streaked sparrow-like brown plumage and horn-colored bill; sexes alike or 
different; immature always different from adult females. No eclipse plumage in 
males, with one exception. Nestlings always showing brightly colored, swollen 
spots, lobes or bands at the gape, and an ornamentation of the tongue or palate, 
consisting of spots or lines. Eggs numerous and always white; nests globular 
with a side entrance, but not woven. Young birds become adult within a year 
of their birth and are then able to breed, while it takes two years for young 
Viduinae and Ploceinae to mature. Peculiar song and courtship variable but 
consistent, in a general way, in large groups of genera. Ten primaries in the wing, 
the first being very short and falcate, with the exception of two genera (Clytospiza 
and Spermophaga) where it is moderately long, not parasitic. 
This large group is composed of three natural subdivisions: the wax- 
bills, chiefly found in Africa, but with one genus in Asia; the grass 
finches, found in Australia and some of the islands of the south Pacific; 
and the mannikins, found in Africa, Asia, and Australia. The 
Estrildinae never weave elaborate nests like the Ploceinae but con- 
struct roughly globular nests of grasses and leaves, with the entrance 
on one side, and which are usually built near or on the ground, in the 
grass, oF in bushes and low trees. The nests are very large for the 
size of their builders. A number of species frequently use old nests 
of other weavers, but usually do a certain amount of work on the 
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