022 



S UGGE—S UN-BIRD 



SUGGE {Prompt. Parmd. ed. Way, p. 483), the apparently 

 obsolete form of Segge (p. 825) Avhicli still persists 



SUMMER-DUCK, a name in America for j^x sponsa (p. 171) ; 

 -SNIPE, the commonest name of the common Sandpiper, Aditis 

 hypoleuca (p. 811); -TEAL, the Garganey (p. 309). 



SUN-BIRD, a name more or less in use for many years,^ and 

 now generally accepted as that of a group of over 100 species of 

 small birds, but when or by Avhom it was first applied is uncertain. 

 Most of them are remarkable for their gaudy plumage, and, though 

 those known to the older naturalists were for a long while referred 

 to the genus Cerihia (Tree-creeper), or some other group, they 

 are now fully recognized as forming a valid Family Nedariniidse, 

 from the name Nedarinia invented in 1811 by Illiger. They 

 inhabit the Ethiopian, Indian and Australian Regions,"^ and, with 

 some notable exceptions, the species mostly have but a limited 

 range. They are considered to have their nearest allies in the 



Nectarinia. 



(After Swainson.) 



Anthreptes. 



Meliphagidm (Honey-eater, p. 428) and the members of the genus 

 Zosterops ; but their relations to the last require further investiga- 

 tion. Some of them are called " Humming-birds " by Anglo-Indians 

 and colonists, but with that group, as before indicated (HujmjVIING- 

 BIRD, pp. 442, 443), the Sun-birds, being true Passeres, have nothing 

 to do. Though part of the plumage in many Sun-birds gleams 

 with metallic lustre, they owe much of their beauty to feathers 

 Avhich are not lustrous, yet almost as vivid, '^ and the most wonderful 

 combination of the brightest colours — scarlet, crimson, purple, 

 blue, green or yellow — is oftfen seen in one and the same bird. 

 One group, however, is dull in hue, and but for the presence in 



^ Certainly since 1826 {cf. Stephens, Gen. Zool. xix. pt. 1, p. 229). Swainson 

 [Classif. B. i. p. 145) says they are "so called by the natives of Asia in allusion 

 to their splendid and shining plumage," but gives no hint as to the nation or 

 language wherein the name originated. By the French they have been much 

 longer known as Souimangas, from the Madagascar name of one of the species 

 given in 1658 by Flacourt as Soumangha. 



° One species occurs in Beloochistan, which is perhaps outside of the Indian 

 Region {cf. supra, p. 334), but the fact of its being found there may be a reason 

 for including that country within the Region, just as the presence of another 

 species in the Jordan valley induces zoographers to regard the Ghor as an outlier 

 of the Ethiopian Region. 



^ Cf. supra, pp. 97, 98, and Gadow, Proc. Zool. Sac. 1882, pp. 409-421, pis. 

 xxvii. xxviii. 



