72 BIED ARCHITECTS 



The genus Coliopasser also presents us with some 

 well-known forms, chief amongst these being the Long- 

 tailed Widow-Bird (Coliopasser procne), known in Natal 

 as the Sakabula. In its breeding garb of glossy black, 

 orange-red epaulettes, and long heavy tail gracefully 

 curved, the male is a conspicuous ornament of the veld 

 almost anywhere in South Africa, excepting Western 

 Cape Colony. It builds a dome-shaped nest of grass 

 in a tuft of the same, and lays three eggs of a bluish- 

 white, thickly marked with dark and purplish-brown 

 and greyish blotches and spots. 



The sprightly little Pin-tailed Whydah (Vidua 

 principalis) is also a well-known figure in its pied 

 plumage of black and white, long narrow tail, and pink 

 bill. It is known to the Boers as the Koning Eooibekje 

 (King Red-bill). The breeding habits of this bird have 

 long been a mystery to ornithologists, owing to the fact 

 that it is a fairly common bird in South Africa, and 

 yet only one or two unsatisfactory observations have 

 been recorded. That excellent oologist and collector, 

 Austin Roberts, has, however (Journal of the South 

 African Ornithologists' Union, June, 1907), solved the 

 problem. He found the species parasitic, depositing its 

 eggs in the nests of other birds, chiefly species of the 

 Estrildince. 



SUNBIRD8. 



The next group of Architects is the Sunbirds (Family 

 Nectariniidce), sometimes called Sugar-birds by the 

 Colonials, and Zuikerbekjes (Sugar-mouths) by the 

 Boers. They live on nectar, pollen and insect life. . 



Perhaps the best known up-country species is the 

 bright metallic-green Malachite Sunbird (Nectarinia 



