PLOCEIN^. 
months. Grain, and especially millet, forms their principal food. The cotton and down of certain plants are used by 
these birds in the formation of their curiously woven nests. 
1. V. regia (Linn.) Cuv. PI. enl. 8. f. 1 , Vieill. Ois. Chant, 
t. 34, 35. 
2. V. principalis (Linn.) Cuv. Edwards's Birds, pi. 270. — 
Eniberiza vidua Linn. Vieill. Ois. Chant, t. S6. ; E. serena Linn. 
PI. enl. 8. f. 2. ; Vidua erytlirorliyncha Swains. B. of W. Afr. 
pi. 12. 
3. V. siiperciliosa (Vieill.) Gal. des Ois. t. 6l. 
4. V. paradisea (Linn.) Cuv. PI. enl. 194., Vieill. Ois. Chant, 
t. 37, 38. 
5. V. ardens (Bodd.) PI. enl. G47. — Emberiza signata Scop. 
Sonn. Voy. t. 75. ; E. payanensis Gmel. ; Vidua rubritorques 
Swuins. B. of W. Afr. p. 174. 
6. V. axillaris A. Smith, 111. S. Afr. Zool. pi. 17. 
7. V. macrocerca (Licht.) Brown, 111. pi. 11. — Coliuspasser 
flaviscapulatus PI. enl. 183. f. 1. 
8. V. macroura (Gmel.). — Loxia longicauda Lath.; Fringilla 
flavoptera Vieill. Ois. Chant, t. 41. ; F. chrysoptera Vie'M. ; 
Vidua chrysonota Swains. 
9. V. laticauda (Licht.). — Coliuspasser torquatus Riipp. Faun, 
t. 36. f 2. 
10. V. lenocinia (Less.) Tr. d'Orn. 437. 
11. V. albonotata Cassin, Proc. Acad. Philad. 1848. p. 65. 
12. V. concolor Cassin, Proc. Acad. Philad. 1848. p. 66. 
Chera. 
Characters in common with Vidua : but the Wings long; with the first quill spurious ; the second, third, 
and fourth slightly graduated ; and the fifth and sixth nearly equal, but the fifth the longest. Tail 
and its coverts much lengthened, compressed, and arched. 
This active species frequents the marshes and borders of the great rivers of South Africa. The females are said by 
Barrow, in his " Travels in South of Africa," to have the peculiar habit of living in societies of twenty or thirty, and 
are in general accompanied by about two males, whose gay plumage becomes sobered like that of the female during 
the winter months, and is resumed again on the return of summer. The nests are also built in societies of thirty 
or more together, woven on the stems of reeds. In form they ajiproach very much those of the other species of this 
subfamily. 
C. Progne (Bodd.) PI. enL 635. — Loxia caffra Gmel.; Emberiza longicauda Gmel. Mill. Icon. t. iii. A., Vieill. Ois. Chant, t. 39, 40. ; 
Vidua phcenicoptera Swains. 
March, 1849. 
