or a dense piece of thatch.

All these weaver-birds, though of different genera, bear a considerable
resemblance to each other in their habits. They are usually
_granivorous_, though some are _insectivorous_; and one species, the
red-billed weaver-bird, (_Textor erythrorhynchus_), is a parasite of the
wild buffaloes.

It is a mistake to suppose that weaver-birds are only found in Africa
and the Old World, as stated in the works of many naturalists. In
tropical America, birds of this character are found in many species of
the genera _Cassicus_ and _Icterus_, who weave pensile nests of a
similar kind upon the trees of the Amazon and Orinoco. 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" (_Ploceus pensilis_).

There were full twenty of their nests in all, shaped as already
described, and of green colour--for the tough "Bushman's grass," out of
which they had been woven, had not yet lost its verdant hue, nor would
it for a long time. Being of this colour, they actually looked like
something that grew upon the tree,--like great pear-shaped fruits. No
doubt from this source have been derived the tales of ancient
travellers, who represented that in Africa were trees with fruits upon
them, which, upon being broken open, disclosed to view either living
birds or their eggs!

Now the sight of the weaver-birds, and their nests, was nothing new to
Truey. It was some time since the colony had established itself upon
the willow-tree, and she and they had grown well acquainted. She had
often visited the birds, had collected seeds, and carried them down to
the tree; and there was not one of the whole colony that would not have
perched upon her wrist or her pretty white shoulders, or hopped about
over her fair locks, without fear. It was nothing unusual to her to see
the pretty creatures playing about the branches, or entering the long
vertical tunnels that led upward to their nests--nothing unusual for
Truey to listen for hours to their sweet twittering, or watch their
love-gambols around the borders of the vley.

She was not thinking of them at the moment, but of something else,
perhaps of the blue water-lilies--perhaps of the springbok--but
certainly not of them, as she tripped