Why DA H- Birds — Comb as o u. 



403 



very similar to the female Paradise Whydah-bird. The breeding season is between July and 

 September, and towards this period of the year the male Cambasou changes to a uniform 

 deep blue-black tint of considerable metallic lustre. The date of this change of colour is 

 however somewhat uncertain, and apparently depends on circumstances. Old birds will some- 

 times retain their court-dress for a year or more, and I have at present a Combasou before 

 me who to my certain knowledge was as black as now eighteen months previously, and has 

 remained so. 



In the aviary this pretty little bird is lively and bold, perhaps a little quarrelsome, but 

 without being dangerous to even the smallest foreign Finches, except in exciting their jealousy 

 by singing to every female. To breed him successfully would require a temperature of about 

 %%° to 90° Fahr., but to keep the Combasou simply as an ornamental inmate of the aviary he 

 will be found quite hardy, and ever lovely and in good condition. Abyssinia and the borders 

 of the Nile are the Combasou's native home, where he apparently lives much after the manner 

 of our European Sparrows. Some travellers assert that he breeds between July and September, 

 others say between January and March ; some say his nest is in trees, others found it under 

 the thatch of roofs and in holes. 



The food and treatment are the same as other Whydah-birds or Finches, vide pages 

 399, 400. 



