ICTERIDAE 579 



species, commonly build in colonies, the most remarkable instance 

 being that of Fhiletaerus, where an umbrella-shaped mass of sticks 

 and straw is formed among the branches of a tree, and in its flat 

 imder surface holes for as many as three hundred nests are exca- 

 vated. Textor makes a somewhat similar joint fabric. In certain 

 cases the hen is said to sit in the roughly-fashioned shell, and to 

 receive the thin ends of the straws from her mate, as he, clinging to 

 the outside, pushes them through with his beak ; she then passes 

 them through to him again, and so the process is repeated in true 

 webster fashion. An inner partition is* often made to prevent the 

 ewws from rolling out. The structures are placed in trees or bushes, 

 frequently overhanging water, in sugar-canes, reeds, foundations 

 of Eagles' ' eyries, or — especially by the smaller species — in long 

 herbage. Exceptionally they are found under eaves. Plocei- 

 passer mahali makes two " spouts," Ploceus laya counterpoises its 

 pensile nursery with lumps of clay. The males add to the fabric 

 after their consorts begin to incubate, and are a.sserted to make 

 nests to sit in ; the hens occasionally lay together, though the 

 cocks are not proved to be polygamous. Munia, Stictospiza, 

 Sporaeginthus, and in fact most Indian and Australian forms, 

 deposit from five to seven dull white eggs ; Ploceus lays two of a 

 Hke description ; Ploceella two, which have a whitish or greyish 

 ground with brown frecklings ; the Ethiopian species about five, 

 either plain white, blue,, or green, or of the same colours, spotted and 

 blotched with red or purplish-brown. In nests of JSyphantornis 

 and Pyromelaena very diverse specimens are often found. 



Fam. XXXV. Icteridae. — This New World group comprises 

 the " American Orioles " or " American Starlings," which are cer- 

 tainly not Orioles, though analogous to the Starlings, and allied 

 through Bolichonyx to the Buntings. From the Fringillidae they 

 are distinguished by the more elongated bill, which has no notch, 

 and by the absence of rictal bristles. Dr. Sclater^ recognises five 

 Sub-famHies : Cassicinae, with long, straight, and often large bills, 

 widening to a frontal shield ; Agelaeinae, where they are conical 

 with flattened culmen, being shortest in Bolichonyx and Mololrus ; 

 Sturnellinae, where they are more slender ; Icterinae and Qmsca- 

 linae, where the culmen is rounded, the length and curvature vary- 

 ing more than elsewhere. Apholus and Curaeus have grooved 

 mandibles, Gymnostinops a naked space at their base, Clypeicterus 

 1 Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xi. 1886, p. 309. 



