130 PLOCEID^: PYROMELANA 



feed their young almost entirely on caterpillars and soft-bodied 

 larvae. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the males in their newly- 

 acquired spring plumage of brilliant yellow and glossy black, and 

 one never tires of watching these feathered gems as they hover 

 with puffed-out plumage over the reeds or grass in which their 

 mates are hidden, looking, as Ayres aptly remarks, " like balls of 

 black and yellow floating slowly about over the grass." 



They breed over the greater portion of the Transvaal in swampy 

 localities, from the Vaal river to the Limpopo, and also, according 

 to Andersson, in great abundance in Ondongo and at Lake Ngami. 



The nests are neatly woven out of long pieces of fine grass in 

 the form of deep purses, or half-closed bags, suspended from three 

 or four reeds, usually over water. The eggs are laid about the end 

 of December in the Northern Transvaal, but not until two months 

 later in the north of Damara Land. They are four or five in 

 number, of a glossy white, dotted and sprinkled all over with very 

 small specks of black or dark brown. They measure, on the 

 average, 0-73 x 0-52. 



69. Pyromelana capensis. Black and Yellow Bishop Bird. 



Loxia capensis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i, p. 306 (1766). 



Ploceus capensis, Gray, Gen. B. i, p. 352 (1850) ; Layard, B. S. Afr. 

 p. 184 (1867). 



Pyromelana capensis, Sharpe, ed. Layard's B. S. Afr. pp. 463, 849, 

 .pt. (1884); id. Cat. B. M. xiii, p. 236 (1890); Butler, Foreign 

 Finches, p. 295, pi. $ and ? (1894) ; Shelley, B. Afr. i, p. 24 (1896). 



" Yellow Kaffir Fink." 



Description. Adult male in breeding plumage. Lower back and 

 rump bright golden-yellow, the feathers elongated and fluffy ; least 

 and middle wing-coverts, edge of wing and axillaries golden-yellow ; 

 under wing-coverts buff ; scapulars brown, tinged with yellow and 

 streaked with blackish ; rest of wing brown, the quills edged with 

 pale brown and yellow ; thighs brown ; entire head, neck and under 

 surface of body velvety black, highly glossed ; rest of plumage, 

 including the tail, black. 



Iris dark brown ; bill black ; feet pale brown. 



Length 7'00 ; wing 3-35; tail 2-80; tarsus 1-00; culmen O70. 



Adult female. Above brown, the feathers streaked with broad 

 blackish centres, those of the back with whitish margins ; lower 

 back and rump olive-yellow streak with brown ; upper tail-coverts 



. 



