276 FOREIGN FINCHES IN CAPTIVITY. 



The male in winter plumage closely resembles the female. 

 Although quite a common species in some parts of South Africa, the 

 catchers do not seem to be aware of the fact that it is a very desir- 

 able cage-bird, otherwise it is inexplicable that they do not include it 

 amongst the many heads of Weavers which are continually being sent 

 here from the Cape. 



According to Mr. F. A. Barratt (Sharpe and Layard) : " Its 

 favourite resorts are swampy ground, valleys, and the long reeds about 

 ponds. After a sharp shower of rain, or in a strong wind, they are 

 scarcely able to fly, and can be easily knocked down ; when flying 

 they very gracefully arch the tail. They leave their nuptial district 

 in the Transvaal about the end of April or the beginning of May." 



Mr. W. L. Distant says : " These long tail-feathers appear to 

 offer a direct hindrance to flight, and the birds always seemed to 

 proceed with difficulty, and great encumbrance, like a Court lady 

 dragging a heavy train." 



Messrs. Sharpe and Layard write: "We are informed that in 

 the breeding-season, when the male has assumed his nuptial livery 

 and long tail-feathers, his flight is so laboured that the children 

 constantly run him down. They are quite unable to fly against the 

 wind, and in rainy weather can hardly be got to move out of the 

 thick bushes, in which, knowing their helplessness, they conceal them- 

 selves. The Kaffir children stretch bird-limed lines across the fields 

 of millet and Kaffir corn, and snare great numbers of the males, by 

 their tails becoming entangled in the lines. We are told that they 

 breed among rushes and reeds, like Pyromelana oryx" 



Mr. Henry Bowker writes :" This bird seldom interferes with 

 our corn-lands, and is mostly found on the open flats ; it builds its 

 nest in long grass close to the ground, and the points of the grasses 

 are drawn over and tied at the top like the frame-work of a native 

 hut. The tail of the male in the breeding-season is not an incon- 

 venience to him. He never, in fact, seems to enjoy himself so much 

 as during a high wind, in which he shows off to advantage, spreading 

 his tail out like a fan. I should say the average is ten or fifteen 

 females to one male." 



The following observations are from the author's note-book : 

 " Riding once between Table Farm and Grahamstown, with Dr. 

 Atherstone, I saw what I took to be a black silk neckerchief, drifting 

 down to us in the strong wind, from a house on a hill some 300 

 yards from our road. I called the attention of niy companion to it, 

 when, with a laugh, he told me it was a Kaffir Fink. The description 



