BISHOP, AND WIDOW-BIRDS 



119 



brilliant plumage of orange-scarlet and black to need any 

 description. Length, 6 inches. It is a common resident from 

 Northern Cape Colony northwards. It is particularly 

 common in the Maroka district of the Orange Free State 

 and the Central Transvaal, where the authors have had 

 personal experience of its depredatory habits. In the first- 

 mentioned country it is so destructive to the Kaffir corn and 



Photo. : Haagnei. 



¥ia. 62. — The home of the Red Bishop-Bird. 



wheat crops that it has earned the undying enmity of the 

 Barolong natives, who trap and kill it wherever and when- 

 ever they can. It nests in the reed-beds which border the 

 spruits (rivulets), many hundreds of nests being congre- 

 gated together in a space of as many square feet. It is not 

 an uncommon sight to see two or three nests suspended 



