PLOCEUS OCULARIUS. 



head, and not black, as in the male ; the colours generally are not so bright 

 as in the male. 



When I first examined the figure of Ploceus brachypterus, Swainson,* I was disposed to 

 regard it as intended to represent the species here figured ; but upon obtaining a specimen of 

 the bird itself, from Western Africa, I found it to differ from ours in so many points, tliat I could 

 not view them as identical. The bill of the Senegal bird is shorter and much more robust than 

 that of the Cape one, and it is also less curved ; the colour of the back of the former is also 

 much greener, and the black of the throat and the sides of the head is more extended. 



Specimens of Ploceus ocularius are found sparingly distributed over South Africa : more 

 especially in the vicinity of the south-east coast. There does not appear among the members 

 of this species any predisposition to congregate — at least, we have rarely found more than the 

 male and his female associated together, and these have generally been discovered in retired 

 situations, well supplied with trees. From a branch of some one of these they suspend their nest, 

 which is constructed of delicate fibres of bark closely interwoven, and so fashioned as to give 

 it when complete the form of a retort. The female generally lays three eggs, which are of a 

 bluish-white colour, spotted sparingly with dusky brown, — the spots of greatest size and most 

 numerous towards the large extremity. The male and female sit alternately upon the eggs, 

 and while so occupied, they are so pertinacious of their duty, that they may with the greatest 

 facility be taken alive in the nest. 



* Naturalist's Library, by Sir William Jardine ; Ornithology, Vol. vii., PI. 10. 



