Corvid ecologists

I think you've got muddled. Sparrow weavers are African birds closely related neither to sparrows nor to the birds you call sparrows in America.

Well now I'm confused. I think we need some Latin names here for clarity.The 'English sparrow' I thought RAZD was discussing (ie. the bird called a house sparrow in England), is Passer domesticus: This is not a member of the finch family (Fringillidae) but of the sparrow family (Passeridae). This bird is common all over the US having been introduced from Europe.By 'weaver finch' I understood the Ploceidae or weavers, which include birds known as 'sparrow weavers' such as Plocepasser mahali: .What, then, is this bird that is known as a house sparrow, English sparrow or weaver finch, but which is neither what the English would call a house sparrow nor a weaver?

A bit of Google has answered my own questions. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines a weaver-finch as a member of the waxbill family Estrildidae. This is a tropical clade which is, according to Wikipedia, sometimes classed as a subfamily of the Passeridae. Still seems to me that calling house-sparrows weaver finches is confusing a topic already confusing enough.'Sparrow', incidentally, is cognate with the Cornish word for 'crow' and the Greek word for 'starling'. Makes you realise why they invented the whole idea of scientific names in the first place!