from Dee/font ein, Cape Colony. 319 



[This Weaver-bird was very common and occurred all the 

 year round. It comes to roost in large numbers in the 

 fruit-groves, round the farms, and is very destructive to fruit 

 during the season, so that the farmers destroy all the nests 

 and eggs that come within their ken. The bright yellow 

 breeding-plumage is not assumed by a complete moult all 

 over the body, but by a gradual change of colour in the 

 feathers, some of the quills and plumes of the head being 

 shed. The nests are mostly placed on willow-trees over- 

 hanging the dams, some within a few feet of the water and 

 others at a height of twenty feet, and we have also found 

 nests built on reeds. 



The colour of the eye is brighter red in birds kept in 

 captivity than in those shot in a wild state.] 



97. ESTRILDA ASTRILDA. 



Estrilda astrilda (L.) ; Sharpe, ed. Layard, pp. 470, 819 

 (1875-84) ; id. Cat. B. xiii. p. 391 (1890) ; Stark, Faun. 

 S. Afr., Birds, i. p. 98 (1900). 



Dcelfontein, Feb. 11-23, 1902. 

 March 2, 1902. 

 May 20, 1902. 

 ? ad. „ Aug. 5-13, 1902. 



Nov. 18, 1902. With nest 

 and five eggs. 

 These examples seem to be typical E. astrilda, but the female 

 shot from the nest is so pale as to be scarcely distinguishable 

 from Damara specimens (E. damarensis Reichenow), which 

 otherwise seems to me to belong to a separable form. In 

 the case of the female bird in the present collection, I would 

 suggest that the paleness of the plumage is due to wear and 

 tear. A nest with five eggs was found in long grass at the 

 bottom of a thorn-bush. The eggs were pure white. Axis 

 0*55 inch, diam. 0'45. 



[Very common, and always found in flocks, even during 

 the nesting-season, but most likely these latter companies 

 consisted of non-breeding birds. The pair always sit very 

 close to the nest, and even if shot at and missed only go a 

 short distance away.] 



