THE WEAVER BIRDS 



1535 



migratory thrush, lurking about the robin's vicinity until the parents are away, 

 and then pouncing on the nest, seizing an egg or young one, and hastily retreating! 

 The adult male is black above and below, variously glossed with green, purple, blue 

 violet, and bronze; the female is similar but her tints are more subdued. 



THE WEAVER BIRDS 

 Family PLOCElDsE 



NEST OF SOCIABLE WEAVERS. 



The weaver birds, which derive their 

 name from the extraordinary textile nests they 

 construct, comprise a large group of birds 

 very abundant in Africa, and represented by 

 many genera in Southeastern Asia and 

 Australia. While very similar to the finches 

 in external appearance, they differ in having 

 ten primary quills in the wings, and likewise 

 in some of them undergoing a partial molt in 

 the spring. Resembling the hangnests to a 

 certain extent in the structure of their nests, 

 they differ both from those birds and the 

 starlings in having no backward prolongation 

 of the hinder extremity of the lower mandible, 



Having a strong conical beak, with the culmcn projecting onto the forehead and 

 arched at the tip, they have the nostrils pierced withia the line of the forehead or 



