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Weale, J., Mansel, on a South African caterpillar. Wealth, influence of. Weapons, used by man; employed by monkeys; offensive, of males; of mammals. Weaver-bird. Weaver-birds, rattling of the wings of; assemblies of. Webb, Dr., on the wisdom teeth. Wedderburn, Mr., assembly of black game. Wedgwood, Hensleigh, on the origin of language. Weevils, sexual difference in length of snout in some.
But the true weaver-birds that is to say, those which are considered the type of the class, are those of the genus Ploceus; and it was a species of this genus that had hung their pendulous habitations upon the weeping willow. They were of the species known as the "pensile weaver-bird."
He does not fail to mark the nest of the tailor-bird, the little creature which ingeniously sews leaves together to suit its purpose, and that of the weaver-bird with its tunnel-like entrance; both are common in the district which we are describing. The nest of the grosbeak is remarkable, being two feet long, and composed of finely woven grass as strong as the texture of common straw hats.
The instincts of even the higher animals are often followed in a senseless or purposeless manner: the weaver-bird will perseveringly wind threads through the bars of its cage, as if building a nest: a squirrel will pat nuts on a wooden floor, as if he had just buried them in the ground: a beaver will cut up logs of wood and drag them about, though there is no water to dam up; and so in many other cases.
A Red Bull on a green field, that shall carry thee to the heavens or what? Was it a vision? Did one make a prophecy? We have a Red Bull in our village behind Jullundur city, and he grazes by choice in the very greenest of our fields! 'Give a woman an old wife's tale and a weaver-bird a leaf and a thread', they will weave wonderful things, said the Sikh.
I am sure you have heard of weaver-birds before this; and you know that these creatures are so called on account of the skill which they exhibit in the construction of their nests. They do not build nests, as other birds, but actually weave them, in a most ingenious manner. You are not to suppose that there is but one species of weaver-bird one kind alone that forms these curious nests.
I walked to the hills, over a level cultivated country interspersed with occasional belts of low wood; in which the pensile nests of the weaver-bird were abundant, but generally hanging out of reach, in prickly Acacias.
"The Persians," according to Zakary ben Mohamed al Caswini, "say the bulbul has a passion for the rose, and laments and cries when he sees it pulled." OUSELEY'S Oriental Collections, vol. i. p. 16. Tailor-Bird. The Weaver-Bird.
Grass is apparently the most convenient material for the purposes of the Weaver-bird when constructing its nest, but other substances are often substituted, and some nests which I brought from Ceylon proved to be formed with delicate strips from the fronds of the dwarf date-palm, Phoenix paludosa, which happened to grow near the breeding place.
Wherever a slight break in the continuity of the mangrove belt permitted the river bank itself to be seen, the margin of the water was ablaze with tall orchids, whose eccentricities of form were matched only by their unsurpassable beauty of colouring; and even the tall, luxuriant grasses contributed their quota to the all-pervading loveliness of the scene by the delicate purple tints of their stamens; while the curious, pendent nests of the weaver-bird, hanging here and there from the longer and coarser grass-stalks curving over the water, added a further element of strangeness and singularity to the picture.
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