• 
2 5 I 
CHAPTER XXII. 
SOCIAL BIRDS. 
The Sociable Weaver Bird and its country — Description of the bird — Nest 
of the Sociable Weaver — How begun and how carried on— Materials of the 
nest — The tree on which the nest is built, and its uses — Dimensions of the 
nest and disastrous consequences — A Hottentot and a lion — Supposed object 
of the Social nest — Average number of inhabitants — Enemies of the Sociable 
Weaver, the monkey, the snake, and the parrakeet. 
We now come to the Social Birds, one of which is as pre- 
eminent among the feathered tribes as is the beaver among 
mammalia. This is the Sociable Weaver Bird, sometimes 
called the Sociable Grosbeak ( Philetcerus socius). 
This species is allied to the Weaver Birds, some of which 
have already been described, and makes a nest which is no 
whit inferior to those which have already been mentioned. 
The Sociable Weaver Bird is a native of Southern Africa, and 
in some places is very plentiful, its presence depending much 
upon the trees which clothe the country. It is not a large 
bird, measuring about five inches in length, and is very incon- 
spicuous, its colour being pale bluff, mottled on the back with 
deep brown. 
The chief interest about the species is concentrated in its 
nest, which is a wonderful specimen of bird architecture, and 
attracts the attention of the most unobservant traveller. Few 
persons expect to see in a tree a nest which is large enough to 
shelter five or six men ; and yet that is often the case with the 
nest of the Sociable Weaver Bird. Of course so enormous a 
structure is ot the work of a single pair, but, like the dam of 
the beaver, is made by the united efforts of the community, 
ill now be described. 
domicile, and capable at last of containing a 
