38 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton on the 
Weaver-bird of the forest. Its note is a loud * spink, 
spink,”’ and it may occasionally be seen going about in small 
family-parties amongst the higher branches, or searching 
the undergrowth, especially leaves which may have dried 
on a fallen or damaged branch, for the insects which form 
its chief food ; but, on the whole, it is a silent and some- 
what solitary bird. I have frequently watched it sitting 
perfectly still or moving about quietly in the foliage, and 
on more than one such occasion have shot it in mistake 
for a Bush-Shrike. A nest common in Chirinda belongs, 
I have no doubt, to this bird, but I have not yet found 
one containing eggs. It is always suspended at the end 
of a long trailg twig or vine, commonly of the thorny 
acacia, at a considerable distance from the ground, and is 
seldom accessible; it 1s composed entirely of roots, vines, | 
and tendrils, usually of a dark colour, loosely woven 
together, the nest proper measuring from 8 to 10 inches in 
depth and from 8 to 3°5 in diameter, and the tunnel, which 
is vertical and entered from below, from 6 to 9 inches in 
length (from the door of the cup) and about 2°5 in diameter. 
The contents of the crops examined have been Gumiti- 
berries, larvee, beetles, and other small imsects. Length in 
the flesh 6°25 inches. 
9, Pyrexia nitiputa. Hartlaub’s” Red-faced Weaver- 
bird. 
Seen occasionally in Chirinda and on its outskirts: it is 
the only Waxbill, so far as I am aware, which habitually 
enters the forest. 
10. Laconosticra NIvEo-cuTTaTa. Peters’s Ruddy Wax- 
bill. 
I have frequently met with this pretty Waxbill along the 
outskirts of Chirinda, and on one occasion I watched a pair 
picking up seeds in the path, some considerable distance 
inside the forest-patch of Chipete; but this is, I believe, 
unusual. The crops examined contained seeds and the débris 
of small insects. 
