Typical Weavers. 71 



yellow supercilium (eyebrow), and a small yellow spot behind the 

 ear-coverts ; the chin and throat are whitish, and the streaks on the 

 lower surface less developed. The bill is pale, horny, fleshy 

 (Birds of India, vol. ii. p. 349). This description, with well- 

 developed streaking below, therefore serves for the female. 



Bengal Weaver (Ploceus bengalensis). 

 As before, the bright yellow of the male is wanting in the female; 

 its head is uniform "dusky-brown, the feathers of the back edged 

 with pale rufous-brown ; a pale yellow supercilium, and a spot of the 

 same colour behind the ears; also a narrow moustachial stripe; 

 throat white, yellowish in some, and usually separated from the 

 yellow moustache by a narrow black line; pectoral band less 

 developed" (Jerdon, Birds of India, vol. ii. p. 350). 



Madagascar Weaver (Foudia madagascariensis). 



The brilliant scarlet of the male is wanting in the female, which 



is olive-brown, the mantle streaked with black ; the crown and nape 



less distinctly and narrowly streaked ; sides of head and under parts 



brownish-buff, whitish in centre of breast; bill, brown instead 



of black , . 



■Comoro Weaver (Foudia eminentissima)* 



The female has no red in its plumage; the crown, rump, and 

 upper tail-coverts are olivaceous-brown, the eyebrow and under 

 parts ashy buff, with the flanks, thighs, and under tail-coverts browner, 

 and a dusky band through the eye ; bill, pale brown (vide Shelley, 

 Birds of Africa, vol. iv. part 2, p. 492). 



Chapter XIV. 



NEW WORLD STARLINGS (Icterida;). 



It used to be asserted that these birds were readily distinguishable 

 from the Starlings of the Old World by the total want of a bastard 

 primary. When J examined all the species which I had kept, and 

 found a very prominent first primary in them all, this statement 

 puzzled me not a little ; but it seems that when the first primary 

 (now called the tenth) is shorter than its coverts, as in the Fringilhdce, 

 MotaciMdce, Icteridce, and some other families, it is now called a 

 remicle ; and when it is longer, a bastard primary. This is a strange 

 distinction, but is, I should imagine, a charitable arrangement for 

 condoning the peccadilloes of venerated but departed ornithologists, 

 some of whom asserted, and evidently believed, that these families 



* I quite agree with Captain Shelley that this species has no claim to be 

 regarded as the type of a distinct genus. 



