Lo | 
* 
COCCOTHRAUSTINZE, — PLOCEUS. 11 
employed to break the hardest nuts. " In the correspond- 
ing latitudes of America we have the subgenus Cocco- 
borus, which is united to 
Pyrenestes by the Brazilian 
C. magnirostris ( fig.159.), 
or the Lowia angolensis of 
the old writers. This type 
is inferior in its bill only 
to the last, while some of 
the species so closely resem- 
ble the genus Pitylus among the tanagers, that they 
can only be distinguished by the notch of the bill being 
very slight, or almost obsolete. Coccothraustes appears 
restricted to the temperate latitudes of Europe, America, 
and Asia: all the species have long wings; and they 
appear to be migratory. The two other supposed types 
‘are African, and at present but little known. 
¥127.) The genus Ploceus is by far the most numerous, as 
well as the most beautiful, 
of this division (Euplectes 
capenis, fig. 1600.). It is 
composed of the weavers, — 
a name given them on ac- 
count of that surprising 
skill with which they fabri- 
cate their nests; a cir- 
cumstance of which we 
have already spoken more 
at large.* We have long 
“had suspicions that this, in truth, is the typical genus of 
the present subfamily, because it is among these birds we 
find by far the greatest intelligence and the most ‘social 
habits, — qualities which are so pre-eminently typical of 
rasorial groups ; and it must be remembered that the 
Fringillide, as a whole, is the rasorial family of the 
Conirostres. On the other hand, we must not overlook 
the circumstance that the weavers feed as much upon 
Imsects as upon seeds, —a fact, indeed, which rests not 
* Vol. I. p. 188. 
