584 
Mr. G. L. Bates on the 
No. 3763, a female shewing evidence of sitting, was 
brought to me with a nest in which it had been shot with 
how and arrow. This nest differed from those of the other 
common species of Ploceus in that it was not attached at the 
sides, hut suspended by a sort of woven stem, while in the 
shortness of the entrance-tube it resembled nests of P. niger- 
rimus. The material used was apparently very narrow 
strips of palm-leaf. The two eggs in the nest (Nos. 236 & 
237) measure respectively 21*5 X 15 and 21 X 14*5 mm. 
[The eggs are of a regular oval form and without gloss. 
The ground-colour is pale greenisli-blue, rather sparingly 
marked with spots and blotches of brownish-grey and lilac- 
grey, the markings being most numerous in an irregular 
zone round the larger end.—W. E. O.-G.] 
Ploceus nigerrimus. [Eyeleso.] 
Melanopteryoc nigerrimus Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 350; 
Bates, Ibis, 1909, p. 46. 
Malimhus nigerrimus Grant, Trans. Zool. Soc. xix. p. 270; 
Ibis, 1908, p. 278. 
This is a black species of Ploceus , and not a Malimhus. 
(1) Both the young birds and the females have plain 
Sparrow-like plumage ; in Malimhus the young and females 
have the colours like those of adult males, though differently 
arranged. (2) P. nigerrimus is gregarious and gramini¬ 
vorous, like P. cucullatus ; all species of Malimhus are shy, 
forest-haunting birds, building solitary nests, and feeding 
entirely on insects. (3) P. nigerrimus has a bright yellow 
iris, like P. cucullatus ; in Malimhus the irides are invariably 
dark brown. That the totally black plumage of P. niger¬ 
rimus is a recent acquisition is indicated by the frequent 
occurrence of a few light feathers among the black ones on 
the abdomen or under tail-coverts. 
Nests of this species and of P. cucullatus are often 
found in the same colony, and are so much alike that it 
is difficult to distinguish them, but the nests of the Black 
Weaver are rather more compactly woven, and have shorter 
entrance-tubes, finished off evenly with the bottom of the 
