100 PLOCEID^E ESTRILDA 



from eight to fourteen in number, are pure white." Atmore 

 remarks : " You know what a funny wisp of a nest it makes, and 

 how carefully concealed ; but how such small birds carry such 

 large bents of grass is a puzzle. The inside is very warm and 

 comfortable, and what may be called the framework of the nest is 

 very nicely contrived, so that all the ear-ends of the grasses are 

 woven together to form a pipe where the entrance is. The nest 

 was in a thicket of brambles and ferns, about six inches from the 

 ground. Even after the bird flew out it required a good search 

 before I could find it. There were twelve eggs in it (whether more 

 than one lays in a nest I cannot say, but only one flew out), they 

 were in all stages of incubation two not set, and four or five had 

 young birds; so large I could not blow them." 



Although several hens occasionally lay in the same nest, this is, 

 according to my own experience, by no means always the case. 

 More usually the nest is constructed by a single cock and hen, who 

 both help in the building, and who generally sit alternately on the 

 eggs ; but at night, and occasionally by day, together. The eggs 

 laid by a single hen are from three to five in number. They are 

 pure white in colour ; in shape usually elongated ovals, averaging 

 0-60 x 0-35. 



53. Estrilda erythronota. Black-faced WaxUll. 



u 



Fringilla erythronota, Vieill. Nouv. Diet, xii, p. 182 (1817). 



Estrelda lipiniana, Smith, Eep. Expl. Centr. Afr. App. p. 49 (1836). 

 Estrelda erythronota, Gray, Gen. B. ii, p. 368, pi. 90, fig. 1 (1849) ; 



Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 198 (1867) ; Gurney in Anderssorfs B. 



Damara Land, p. 178 (1872); Sharpe, ed. Layard's B. 8. Afr. 



p. 473 (1884) ; Shelley, Ibis, 1886, p. 329. 

 Estrilda erythronota, Sharpe, Cat. B. M< xiii, p. 397 (1890) ; Shelley, 



B. Afr. i, p. 30 (1896). 



Description. Adult male. Above, crown, nape, sides of neck 

 and back grey tinged with red and barred with fine lines of brown ; 

 lower back, rump and upper tail-coverts crimson ; tail black ; wing- 

 coverts like the back but more coarsely barred ; quills brown, the 

 outer webs with darker bars ; lores, eyebrow, face and chin black ; 

 below grey tinged with crimson, and barred with brown on the 

 breast, merging into black on the under tail-coverts, which are 

 tipped with white ; axillaries, under wing-coverts and inner webs 

 of quills pale grey ; edge of wing mottled with brown. 



