THE LONG-TAILED WHYDAH. 277 



was complete ! as he came near, I saw he was drifting at a prodigious 

 rate ; his wings flapping round and round like mill sails, and his tail 

 spread in a compact mass. He appeared quite capable of guiding 

 himself, for he took good care never to let me get within shot of 

 him, though I tried hard ; but I shall never forget the queer black 

 object. Harford says the Zulus set a high value on their tails. 

 Doubtless they are used to decorate the heads of the warriors, as 

 represented by Angus, and other painters of Zulu battle-fields." 



Mr. Ayres gives the following account of their breeding habits : 

 " The nest of this species is placed close to the ground, in a tuft of 

 long grass, to the blades and stalks of which it is roughly woven or 

 joined ; it is rather a rough structure, composed of fine grass and 

 lined with the reed-ends ; the opening is at the side. The eggs are 

 almost invariably four in number. It is called by the colonists 

 ' Kaffir Fink,' and Captain Harford says that the Zulu name is 

 ' Isa-Kabuli.'" 



Messrs. Butler, Feilden and Reid say : " One of the commonest 

 birds in the upper portions of the colony, but not observed in any 

 great numbers below Howick, or rather Riet Sprint, a few miles lower 

 down on the Pietermaritzburg Road. Reid met with a small colony 

 on the downs near Richmond Road Station, in December, but did not 

 observe them elsewhere in that neighbourhood. They roost in hundreds, 

 or even thousands, .in the reedy ' vleys,' flock after flock pouring in 

 from all sides about sundown, till the whole place is alive with 

 them. Long-tailed Widow-bird, Kaffir Chief, called by the Kaffirs 

 ' Saca-bulo.' " 



" After a severe hailstorm in October, Butler found several of 

 these birds near Newcastle so injured by the hailstones that they were 

 unable to fly." 



Dr. Russ gives an account of the habits of a male in the Berlin 

 Zoological Gardens, in much the same words as he uses to describe 

 those of the Paradise Whydah : as compared with the small Whydahs 

 it is by no means active, flying somewhat heavily out from a branch 

 and returning to the same spot. 



Singularly enough, after describing the nest-building of the 

 Paradise Whydah, and distinctly showing that the hens were the 

 architects, and that the cock-birds took no interest either in the nest 

 or the young (a common failing in other polygamous birds) ; he now 

 seems to have forgotten his own experience and urges, almost word 

 for word, the same fallacy put forward by Wiener in Cassell's Cage 

 Birds, viz. : That as the males, and not the females, of all Weavers 



