ZOOLOGY 
33 1 
a grass-green head and throat, a golden yellow collar round the neck and the 
same bright tint over the breast, stomach, and edges of the tail feathers ; it 
is olive green on the back and middle of the tail ; the wings are blue-grey and 
the same tint is on the outer tail feathers mixed with the yellow ; the eye 
is crimson and the beak reddish-brown. 
Weaver birds are well represented. There is an elegant Widow bird (Vidua 
paradisea) the male of which in the breeding season develops enormous black 
plumes as an addition to his tail feathers—plumes more than three times as 
long as his body. The rest of the plumage is black, cream-yellow and chestnut 
red. It is charming to see this bird flying with an undulatory motion through 
the air. So far from being impeded by its tail feathers in a high wind it is 
as it were buoyed up by the widespread plumes to which so disproportionately 
small a body is attached. The Widow bird with its long black feathers may 
bear some resemblance (especially the upper plumes which are crimped like 
crape) to a widow’s weeds, but is far from widow-like in disposition. The male 
is one of the most uxorious of birds, each cock having a harem of ten to fifteen 
hens devoted to him and on whom he lavishes great attention. He has an 
innate conviction of his own beauty and is perpetually strutting about to show 
off his plumes. Then there is the exquisite Bishop bird—flame-coloured and 
black, the flame-coloured portion of the body being like plush in appearance. 
This lovely creature is present in enormous numbers in the grasslands, and 
to see these little soft balls of flame-coloured plush hanging to the grass stems 
and fluttering about almost within reach of one’s hands is one of the few 
alleviations of the unspeakable misery of travelling through long grass in 
Africa, the barbed seeds of which work their way through one’s clothing until 
they penetrate the skin. 
Closely allied to the Weavers are the tiny Waxbills or Weaverfinches, some 
of which for their minute size are only surpassed by humming birds. One 
of these which is spread almost all over Tropical Africa is especially noticeable. 
It is called by the French “ Cordon bleu ” and is an exquisite mixture of smalt- 
blue and grey. Others of these little Waxbills are rosy red, and when they 
come with confident tameness to a clear patch of ground to feed on the grass 
seeds they are so small and so exquisitely coloured that they seem like the pets 
of a Lilliputian race. Of course there is a sparrow in Africa (.Passer diffusus ) 
— common also to South Africa. The African buntings (Emberiza and 
Fringillarid) are pretty little birds of black, grey and yellow which have 
a pleasing song. The Makua are very fond of catching and taming this bird 
and keeping it in neatly made cages round their houses. When these men were 
stationed at Zomba as soldiers they would speedily catch the buntings in small 
traps, put them in tiny cages made of reeds, hang them up outside the hut 
or barrack and in a week the bird would be perfectly tame and singing away 
shrilly. Another favourite singing bird of the Makua, and one commonly 
met with, is a close ally of the wild canary, the “ Serin finch ” (Serinus, the 
same genus as the canary). These birds very much resemble the wild canary 
in appearance. There are no less than three species in Nyasaland. Wagtails 
of two or more species visit British Central Africa during the dry season, 
presumably migrating thither from the winter of South Africa. They are liked 
and protected by everyone—white and black—and flit about the native villages, 
European settlements and Arab towns with charming familiarity and freedom 
from fear. Their song is very pleasant. 
There are two Pipits of the genus Anthus, three species of Thrush (which 
