190 
RED-BREASTED BENGALY. 
Estrelda scmguimlenta, Swains. 
Above light brown ; beneath varied with yellow and orange ; 
flanks with transverse brown linos ; eye-brows and upper 
tail-covers crimson. 
Fringilla sanguinolenta, PI. Col. PI. 221, fig. 2. 
The remaining species of weavers belong to a group 
which we have separated from the former, on ac- 
count of their much smaller feet and shorter bill, 
the upper mandible of which is much broader at 
the top than it is high on the sides. This structure 
we consider a modification of the depressed, or fissi- 
rostral form ; although the bill, when the mandibles 
are closed, becomes conic. Now this character of 
the breadth of the upper mandible is precisely what 
we find in the genus Coccolhraustes, which is the 
fissirostral genus in the adjoining circle of hard- 
bills, but which has not the spurious quill of the 
true weavers seen in the present group. 
The great number of species composing this 
division, naturally leads us to expect many slight 
variations in structure ; and such there are. Of 
these divisions, or sub-genera, Estrelda appears to be 
one, and the birds composing it are typically known 
by their more lengthened and graduated tails, and 
more elongate conic bills. These birds, as shewing 
an affinity to the whidahs, and particularly to V. 
