[ 63 ] 
WEAVER ORIOLE. 
Le Cap-More. Buff. Ois. iii. p • 226. 
Troupcale male du Senegal. PL ent . 3 7 5 • 
This bird is rather larger than the Baltimore Oriole, described in the 
1 6th Plate of this Work. It is a native of Africa ; and the subject of this 
Plate, which I have reason to think was the first that was ever brought to 
England, came with several other birds from Senegal. 
It is not until they reach their second year that these birds attain their 
perfect plumage, at which period, in the spring, the head, which was be- 
fore yellow, becomes of a rich brown, which when viewed in the sun ap- 
pears to have a brown golden gloss, in the shape of a friar’s cowl, from 
whence it takes the name of Cap More, or Capuchin Mordore. In moult- 
ing this cowl disappears, leaving the head of its yellow colour, which re- 
turns again regularly every spring. 
The Count de Buffon describes two of these birds which interwove the 
stalks of groundsel, chickweed, pimpernell, 8cc. with which they were 
fed in the wires of their cage. As this was understood as an indication of 
a desire to breed, they were supplied with proper materials, with which 
they soon formed a nest sufficiently capacious to conceal one of the birds 
entirely ; but the labour of one day was destroyed in the next ; which proves 
that in a state of nature the fabrication of the nest is not the production of 
an individual, but the joint efforts of both male and female, and is most 
probably finished by the last. 
On some sewing silk being put into the cage, it interwove the wire so as 
to render that side on which it worked from being seen through, and it was 
remarked that it gave the preference to green and yellow to any other co- 
lour. 
The note of this bird is sprightly, but too shrill to be agieeable. 
