224 Cruise of the "Alert." 



a large brown finch, and a small yellow-breasted finch, a red- 

 capped weaver-bird, and a waxbill (?). Of these I could only 

 obtain specimens of the small finch and the weaver-bird. The 

 yellow-breasted finch is gregarious, and mostly frequents the tops 

 of the cocoa-nut trees and the upper branches of the tall casuarinas, 

 where it keeps up an incessant melody of song, pleasant to the ear 

 in the variety and succession of the notes, and somewhat resem- 

 bling the song of the canary. In the large casuarina grove, near 

 the western end of the island, I succeeded, but with much difficulty, 

 in procuring some male specimens of the weaver-bird {Foitdia 

 Madagascar ensis). The females were nesting. I observed one 

 of the latter flying away from the tree in which its nest was con- 

 structed, and from which I had disturbed it. It differed from the 

 male in having the red-coloured feathers confined to the head, the 

 rest of the plumage being of a dull brown. The nest was an 

 oblong affair, having a lateral opening, and was constructed of a 

 parasitic plant of creeping habit, which the Creoles use for making 

 a substitute for tea. The nest hung from the extremity of a 

 casuarina branch which projected horizontally. The male bird 

 was to be seen perched singly on the summits of the large 

 casuarinas, where it made its presence known by a peculiar 

 and characteristic twittering note which it emits about four 

 times in a minute. It was very wary, and difficult to 

 approach within a sixty yards' range, so that it was only 

 by most careful stalking that I could succeed in bringing down 

 a specimen. The brown finch was not abundant, and seemed 

 to confine its range to the plantations of young cocoa-nuts, 

 where it was continually shifting its perch. The waxbill was 

 a very small bird, which was to be seen every now and then 

 flitting in large flocks among the maize plants and low bushes. 

 I was much surprised to find that the four small birds above 

 mentioned were so very wary, as there were no predatory 

 birds on the island, and it was unlikely that they had ever 

 been shot at before. Nevertheless, the motion of raising one's 



