Annals of the Transvaal Museum 
265 
Ploceidae. 
Heliospiza noomeae Gunning {Journ. S. Afr. Orn. Un. iii. 209, 1907) 
was based upon two juvenile specimens of Anomalospiza imherhis (Cab.). 
In any case Heliospiza is preoccupied by Helospiza Baird. I have not been 
able to compare specimens from different parts of the country and cannot 
therefore speak to the status of A. rendalli. The genus is parasitic like 
Vidua serena (see Ann. Transvaal Mus. v. 260, 1917), and Shelley was 
therefore doubly right in placing it in the Viduinae. 
According to Richmond (Sm. coll. Quart, ii. 345, 1905) the earliest name 
for the Pin-tailed Widow-bird appears to be Vidua macroura (Vroeg). So 
far, no one has properly classified members of the genus Hypochera on the 
colour of the legs and bill, which are red in one group and white in the 
other, though the red fades away in the one case after the specimens have 
dried out. Members of the two groups occur side by side, but the white- 
billed group is apparently the common one of the east and the red-billed 
one the common one of the west ; the former is also rather larger. 
Recent writers have dropped the generic name of Penthetriopsis Sharpe 
(Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xiii. 220, 1890) for Loxia macroura Gmelin and the 
allied species Vidua alhonotatus Cassin, both of which are now commonly 
referred to Coliuspasser \ but it is a valid genus, differing from Urobrachya 
in its longer tail and from Coliuspasser in its shorter tail. Some writers 
have separated Euplectes Swainson from Pyromelana and have placed Taha 
under Pyromelana’, but the difference between Taha Bonaparte, type 
Euplectes taha A. Smith, and Pyromelana Bp., type E. orix L., is greater 
than the difference between Euplectes and Pyromelana. In Taha the outer- 
most primary is minute, the second primary equal to the third and longest, 
and the upper rump plumes in the male in breeding plumage are very 
nearly as long as the tail ; it is also a much smaller bird, and its eggs are 
unlike those of any other genus of the group, white with black spots. In 
Pyromelana the outermost primary is longer and the second is shorter than 
the third, and the plumes of the rump do not reach so far back over the 
tail; its nest is placed between reeds or straight-stemmed weeds and its 
eggs are immaculate greenish blue. Euplectes has been rejected by Ober- 
holser (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. xxviii. 885, 1905) and replaced by Hyper- 
anthus Gistel ; but the latter would seem to be also preoccupied by Hyper- 
antha Mann. (Coleoptera), and if so must give place to Xanthomelana 
(misprinted Xanthomelanae) Bonaparte, type Loxia capensis L. The genus 
is characterised by its broader tail feathers, which are also proportionately 
longer than in Taha and Pyromelana, and the rump plumes not so long 
as to hide the upper tail coverts in the male in breeding dress. The nest is 
like that of Taha, placed amongst weeds in marshy ground, but the eggs 
are pale greenish and longitudinally marked with various shades of dark 
brown and slate. The proportion of the tail to the wing in Taha is between 
50 and 60 per cent., in Pyromelana between 60 and 70, and in Xantho- 
melana over 70. Pyromelana orix sundevalli Bonaparte, described from the 
Limpopo, is admitted as valid by Sclater (Ibis, 1911, p. 235). Lonnberg 
(Ark. Zool. XII. No. 3, pp. 1-5) has shown that the earliest name for P. 
flammiceps (Swainson) is P. hordacea (L.). I have described a subspecies 
of X. capensis from the Olifants River, C.P., as Euplectes capensis macro- 
