WAX-BILLS. 



543 



and some are even known to actually strip the thin twigs of their leaves in order to 

 make the access to the nest still more difficult. The weavers are easily kept in cap- 

 tivity, and even in a cage they busy themselves with weaving grass, threads in fact, 

 anything they can get hold of into the wire netting of the cage, while in the aviary 

 they keep up their regular nest-weaving. 



The vidas ( Vidua) are like the true weavers, but the males are adorned with enor- 

 mously lengthened tail-feathers in the pairing season. They are exclusively African. 



FlO. 270. Textor dinemellii and alecto, African weaver-birds. 



The waxbills, on the other hand, are also distributed over the Oriental region, and 

 Australia possesses many very beautiful species of these exquisite little grosbeaks, 

 which have derived their popular name from the fact that the bill of many species is 

 red, as if made of sealing wax. Mostly delicately colored and very hardy, these birds 

 make very attractive cage birds, and some of them, for instance one of the smallest 

 species, the vermilion rerl, white-dropped La</onosticte, are pleasant songsters, and most 

 of them become very tame in confinement, so as to even readily breed in a small cage. 



