Nesting of the Eiifous -throated Blue Sugar Bird. 275 



fairly on the wing, and one has to look twice to distinguish 

 it from the adults. 



The food given consisted of insectivorous food, raw 

 meat cut small, and mealworms. 



Nesting of the Rufous-throated Blue Sugar Bird, 



(Glossoptila ruficollis) . 

 By Miss E. F. Chawnbr. 



Our esteemed Editor has asked me to send an account 

 of the nesting of my pair of Eufous- throated Blue Sugar 

 Birds, but I regret to say that the nesting resulted in failure 

 and is, I fear, scarcely worth recording. I bought the birds 

 last February from our e^^teemed member Mr. Sutcliffe. They 

 were acclimatised and in excellent condition though Mr. Sut- 

 cliffe warned me that the cock bird had been wheezing. I 

 placed them in a garden aviary, having an inner heated com- 

 partment in which they spent most of the cold weather. I 

 feed them on sweetened milk sop, ripe bananas, oranges, grapes, 

 and other fruit in season, and I have lately seen the hen pick 

 up and eat mealworms. She also swallowed a good deal of 

 maw seed at first, but since the hot weather set in she appears 

 to have given it up. I have never known the cock to 

 take any insect or seed. They will not look at ants' " eggs " 

 or cockroaches. They are much together, but while the hen 

 " skulks " among heather or spruce boughs, so that she is 

 practically invisible, the cock shows himself boldly and sings 

 rather prettily at times. 



They began to look about for a nesting site during 

 the second week in June, and by the 24th, had built a nest 

 cup-shaped, of heather, cotton wool, and grass, lined with hair 

 (much like a Hedge Sparrows in size and shape), in the corner 

 of a Hartz-cage, fastened high up in the covered part of the 

 aviary. The cock continually accompanied the hen in her 

 search for material and mounted guard while she was building, 

 but I do not think he actually carried anything or worked 

 at the nest. When it was finished, they appeared discontented 

 with it, and finally moved it to an old whicker cuff also high 

 up in the same part of the aviary, but where they could be 



