68 PLOCEID^] SITAGEA 



shape, it is readily distinguishable by its smaller size and much 

 neater and more artistic finish. Occasionally a second and even 

 a third entrance neck is added ; this is usually about ten inches long, 

 but a nest in the Albany Museum at Grahamstown has a neck up- 

 wards of eight feet long. Another nest of this species in the same 

 collection is entirely woven from black horse-hair, and is a most 

 finished specimen of bird architecture. These Weavers devote 

 several months to the construction of their nests, and frequently 

 abandon a partly constructed one to commence another close by. 

 Sometimes a new nest will be suspended from the old one of the 

 preceding year. As a rule Smith's Weaver Bird builds a solitary 

 nest, occasionally two pairs will build on the same tree, and on one 

 occasion I found a pair of these birds nesting in the midst of a 

 colony of the Spotted Weaver Bird. 



The eggs are two or three in number, white, rather closely 

 spotted with pale red. They measure 0'72 x O54. 





o 



31. Sitagra xanthoptera> Yellow-winged Weaver Bird. 

 A- C*^Avv^ 



Hyphantornis, sp., Kirk, Ibis, 1864, p. 322. 



Hyphantornis xanthopterus, Finsch and Hartl. Vog. Ostafr., p. 399 



(1870) ; Sharpe, ed. Layard's B. S. Afr. p. 443 (1884) ; id. Cat. B. 



M. xiii, p. 444, pi. 13, fig. 2 (1890). 

 Ploceus xanthopterus, Shelley, Ibis, 1887, p. 25. 

 Xanthophilus xanthopterus, Shelley, B. Afr. i, p. 38 (1896). 



Description. Adult male. Above bright yellow, the feathers of 

 back and scapulars slightly mottled with greenish ; rump and upper 

 tail-coverts bright yellow ; wing-coverts yellow ; bastard wing and 

 primary coverts dusky edged with yellow; quills yellow, their 

 outer margins and tips blackish ; tail-feathers pale olive-brown 

 edged with yellow ; lores, feathers below eye, front of ear-coverts 

 and cheeks as well as throat, chestnut-red ; rest of head and neck, 

 under surface of body, also under surface of quills and under wing- 

 coverts, bright yellow. 



Bill black ; feet flesh-colour. 



Length 6-00 ; wing 2 95 ; tail 2-00 ; tarsus O90; culmen 0-65. 



Distribution. Quilimane, the Zambesi Delta, and the valley 

 of the Shire Eiver. 





