362 



PERCHING BIRDS. 



of the American robin or migratory thrush, lurking about the robin's vicinity 

 until the parents are away, and then pouncing on the nest, seizing an egg or 

 young one, and hastily retreating. The adult male is black above and below, 

 variously glossed with green, purple, blue violet and bronze ; the female is 

 similar but her tints are more subdued. 



THE WEAVER-BIRDS. 

 Family PLOCElDsE. 





I 



NEST OF SOCIABLE WEAVERS. 



The weaver - birds, which derive their 

 name from the extraordinary textile nests they 

 construct, comprise a large group of birds 

 very abundant in Africa, and represented by 

 many genera in South - Eastern Asia and 

 Australia. While very similar to the finches 

 in external appearance, they differ in having 

 ten primary quills in the wings, and likewise 

 in some of them undergoing a partial moult in 

 the spring. Kesembling the hangnests to a 

 certain extent in the structure of their nests, 

 they differ both from those birds and the 

 starlings in having no backward prolongation 

 of the hinder extremity of the lower mandible. 



Having a strong conical beak, with the culmen projecting on to the forehead and 

 arched at the tip, they have the nostrils pierced within the line of the forehead or 

 close to it, while the space between the nostril and the edge of the mandible is 



