584 Mr. G. L. Bates on the 



No. 3763, a female shewing evidence of sitting, was 

 brought to me with a nest in which it had been shot with 

 bow and arrow. This nest differed from tliose of the other 

 common species of Pluceus in that it was not attached at the 

 sides, but suspended by a sort of woven stem, while in the 

 slioitness of the entrance-tube it resembled nests of P. rnyer- 

 rimus. The material used was apparently very narrow 

 strips of palm-leaf. The two eggs in the nest (Nos. 236 & 

 237) measure respectively 21 "5 X 15 and 21 x 14"5 mm. 



[The eggs are of a regular oval form and without gloss. 

 The ground-colour is pale greenish-blue, rather sparingly 

 marked with spots and blotches of brownish-grey and lilac- 

 grey, the markings being most numerous in an irreguiar 

 zone round, the larger end. — W. R. O.-G.] 



Ploceus nigerrimus. [Eyeleso.] 



Melanopferyx nigerrimus Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 350; 

 Bates, Ibis, 1909, p. 46. 



Malimbiis nigerrimus Grant, Trans. Zool. Soc. xix. p. 270; 

 Ibis, 1908, p. 278. 



This is a black species of Ploceus, and not a Malimbus. 

 (1) Both the young birds and the females have plain 

 Sparrow-like plumage; in Malimbus the young and females 

 have the colours like those of adult males, though differently 

 arranged. (2) P. nir/errimus is gregarious and gramini- 

 vorous, like P. cucullatus ; all species of Malimbus are shy, 

 forest-haunting birds, building solitary nests, and feeding 

 entirely on insects. (3) P. nigerrimus has a bright yellow 

 iris, like P. cucullatus ; in Malimbus the irides are invai'iably 

 dark brown. That tlie totally black plumage of P. niger- 

 rimus is a recent acquisition is indicated by the frequent 

 occurrence of a few light feathers among the black ones on 

 the abdomen or under tail-coverts. 



Nests of this species and of P. cucullatus are often 

 found in the same colony, and are so much abke that it 

 is difficult to distinguish them, but the nests of the Black 

 Weaver are rather more compactly woven, and have shorter 

 entrance-tubes, finished off evenly with the bottom of the 



