1 32 THE WEAVER BIRDS. 



monplace little bird, about the size of a sparrow and 

 marked very like a sparrow. It easily passes for a 

 sparrow and does not care, but on a near view the 

 two are easily distinguished, for a sparrow is grey and 

 brown, whereas the prevailing tone of a Weaver 

 Bird is yellow. Its underparts are all of a dull 

 yellow tint, and the feathers of the back and wings 

 are bordered with brownish-yellow. Its very bill is 

 yellow. As the hot season advances the male gets 

 itself a wedding suit, in which, I confess, it is rather 

 a dandy. The crown of its head and its breast then 

 become bright yellow and its face becomes black. 

 But it resumes its humble, workaday costume at the 

 end of the rains. 



Weaver Birds are more than sociable. They not 

 only feed together in large numbers and sleep 

 together in thousands among the mangroves that 

 border all our large creeks, but they like to make 

 their nests and bring up their young in company. 

 At that time they become especially jovial and noisy. 

 The books all say that the Weaver Bird has no song, 

 and I will not maintain that its voice is musical, or 

 that it makes any pretence to be a soloist ; but it is 

 grand at a chorus. When a glorious company of 

 Weaver Birds join in song, the likeness to an after- 

 dinner performance of " He's a Jolly Good Fellow " 

 is most striking. Or sometimes I compare it to a 

 party of British soldiers returning home from a festive 

 meeting, whom the spirit of patriotism makes vocal. 



To come to those wonderful nests. The birds usually 

 begin operations in July or August. They are whim- 

 sical in the choice of a site. One essential condition 

 js that the nest must hang from the end of a drooping 



