SHORT CUTS ВУ BIRDS ТО NECTARIES. 405 
In ‘ The Тыз? (1908, рр. 31-45) 1 mentioned a number of the flowers that 
are frequented by our various local sunbirds. The list might be very greatly 
extended, for these birds haunt not only the flowers that depend on them to 
some extent for pollination, but visit an immense number of mainly entomo- 
philous species as well, and, but for my failure regularly to note down such 
flowers as I have from time to time seen them visiting, my own list alone 
would be a very lengthy one. 
In Соната longispicata, Engler, and Aberia maecrocalyx, Oliver, both 
frequented by sunbirds—the latter in particular by С. olivacina,—the honey- 
dises are open to all comers, and no “ breaking ” is necessary. The same 
roughly applies to the Ceara rubber-tree. However, * during March” 
(1907), * when my rubber-trees (Manihot Glaziovii, Müll.-Arg.) were in full 
bloom, several of these birds ? ( Cinnyris chalybvus) “ frequented the plantation 
daily, and on the 22nd of that month Odendaal shot a male there, the 
stomach of which I found to be distended by a ball of elastic brown rubber ” 
C Ibis,’ 1908, p. 38). I judge that the bird, in attempting to extract the 
honey, had perhaps found it diffieult to avoid pricking the dises, and that it 
could not have survived much longer. However, the stomachs of two others 
shot in the same trees had only insect-remains for their solid contents. 
In the hanging flowers of Calpurnia lasiogyne, E. Meyer, roughly 
reminiscent of laburnum and visited by Cinnyris niasse, the thin pliable 
pedicels probably play the same part as in Aloë Swynnertonii and Halleri« 
lucida, and 1 have found no traces of damage from outside to the bases of 
the flowers excepting on the part of insects. Some very fine punctures 
and scratches on the petals have probably been from within, and are likely 
simply to represent “ bad shots " on the part of the sunbirds. These hang 
head downward from the vertically suspended peduncles, and turning their 
bills upwards probe the flowers from below. 
Melia Azedarach, Linn., an importation from the East, is frequented at 
Chirinda by sunbirds when in bloom, particularly, so far as I have observed, 
by С. chalybwus and С. masse. I have also seen С. kirki visiting its 
flowers. A male C. niasse that I shot after it had been visiting the flowers, 
for a considerable time had its lower throat and breast dusted with pollen, 
and as it had seemed frequently to brush the flowers with these parts 
in attempting to reach others further away, and may thus have possibly 
come into contact with the anthers fringing the staminal tubes, it is possible 
that the pollen may have been that of the Melia. 
These Melia flowers seem, however, in any case to be essentially entomo- 
philous in character ; and it is interesting to contrast their intense scent 
with the practical lack of it in Ærythrina tomentosa and Grevillea robusta. 
The remaining species seen visited at Chirinda by birds will be given 
below, as well as a fuller list of the birds themselves. 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XLIII. 27 
