90



Dr. A. G. Butler,



finches generally, there was a resemblance in nidification and

other habits, I should conclude that there was some relationship.


Ridgway calls Sporophila a genus of Seed-eaters ; and I

see no objection to this, because the Old World Seed-eaters, like

the New World Spermophilce , are mostly excellent songsters ; and

some of them have broad heavy beaks not unlike that of Chloris :

both genera, Serinus and Spermophila, build open cup-shaped

nests, and in captivity can be induced to build in nesting-boxes

or cups; but in the case of some of the Spermophilce the nests

are not formed in the mechanical fashion adopted by most of the

cup-building finches, but are laboriously netted into the most

delicate and artistic tracery of a cup, the materials used being

the finest and toughest fibre, rootlets, or horsehair. A. albigularis

some years ago built several of these pretty structures in my

birdroom, using the fine white fibre sometimes used for filling

grates in the summer time : they were light as gossamer, but

utterly untearable by human hands.*


Now it seems to me that when certain birds in a genus

exhibit a talent for weaving far in advance of other cup-building

finches, we see the first steps towards the development of the

marvellous structures produced by the Weavers.


In Melopyrrha and Phonipara (the second of which Ridg¬

way calls Eiieiheia —a change which I consider quite unnecessary,

since both genera were described in the same year and the con¬

struction of Euetheia needed later emendation) the nest is formed

precisely in the same manner as in the Viduine Ploceidce —

Muniince and Eslrildinez , and therefore some time since I pro¬

posed for these clever architects the Subfamily name of

Phoniparince.


Ridgway says that Melopyrrha “ is an exaggeration of

Sporophila , but between the most similar species of the latter and

the type of Melopyrrha there is a considerable gap.” This is

just what one would expect where, though both birds weave

their nests, the finished structures so greatly differ.


Ridgway calls the species of Melopyrrha “Bullfinches,”

though no Bullfinch ever built a nest of the Ploceine pattern;

the species of Phonipara he calls “ Grassquits,” a name applied



• 3". ccciulcsceus does the same and probably others of the pied species.



