Birds of Southern Kamerun. 43 
[Two eggs are of a rather pointed oval shape and pure 
white.—O.-G.] 
1335. Ploceus dorso-maculatus. 
Phormopledes dorsomaculatus Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 349. 
The specimens of this bird were all obtained recently 
around Bitye, killed by my boys. They seem to have 
been found in such places as the last species ( Ploceus 
bicolor ), and to eat the same sort of food, mostly insects. 
No. 2438 was killed along with its young, No. 2439, in a 
curious manner. The boy caught the young one first and 
tied a string to its foot, and held it thus tethered while he 
hid himself and waited. The old bird (the father, not the 
mother) came “ with a fruit in its mouth 99 to give the 
young one, when the boy killed it with a stick. The 
“ fruit 39 was probably a spider, a leg of which I found in 
the bird^s mouth. 
1346. Ploceus nigricollis. [Ngas.] 
Heteryphantes nigricollis Sharpe, Ibis, 1908, p. 348. 
This is one of the commonest birds in clearings and in small 
second-growth bushes in every place where I have collected. 
But though common it is rather silent ond retiring. In my 
note which was published in ‘ The Ibis J (1908, p. 349), but 
was written two or three years ago, in saying that it makes 
a great rustling of leaves,” I had confused Ploceus bicolor 
with this bird. Then I had likewise not learned to dis¬ 
tinguish the nests of the two species, and the words “ with 
a very short entrance and somewhat roughly made 99 apply 
better to nests of Sycobrotus bicolor. The nests of the 
“ Ngas 99 are somewhat smaller, have the entrance or vesti¬ 
bule a little longer, and are a little better woven and of finer 
materials—fine weed or grass-stems, although in general the 
nests of the two species look alike. Ngas^s 99 nests are 
found very often—generally old and deserted ones—hanging 
on bushes, not on trees. Other smaller birds, or at least the 
little Flycatcher Pcedilorhynchus camerunensis , use these 
second-hand nests to breed in, so that eggs found in a 
Ngas's nest are not always eggs of the Ngas. 
