Birds of Southern Kamerun. 65 



swallowed. Sometimes tiuy shells and grains of sand were 

 found ! 



Many of the nests of Sunbirds found hanging on bushes 

 probably belong to this species. Some of them have been 

 identified by having the bird caught in them ; but the birds 

 thus caught have always been females, and it is assumed 

 that the plain-coloured females corresponding in measure- 

 ments with the males of this species really belong to it. 

 These nests are constructed, like those of other Sunbirds 

 already described, of stringy fibres more or less mixed with 

 dry leaves and lichens, and lined with fine white pappus- 

 down. Though the entrance to the nest is very small 

 (20 mm, in diameter, or just fitting the thumb) the inside is 

 roomy for so small a bird. The nests with sitting birds 

 were all found in the month of April, in diff"erent years. 

 Though this was partly a mere accidental coincidence, since 

 breeding birds were killed in several other months, yet 

 doubtless it shews a preference for that month for breeding, 

 when rains, but not the hard pouring rains, refresh the 

 vegetation after the drought. The number of eggs of this 

 Sunbird was never more than two, and they varied little 

 in size; length 14-15 mm., breadth 105-11 mm, 



[Five eggs are of a pointed oval form and are more or less 

 glossy. The ground-colour is pale bluish-white, with a 

 strongly marked zone round the larger end, consisting either 

 of separate spots or of confluent clouds and longitudinal 

 streaky markings of dark grey, with a few minute blackish 

 surface-markings, — 0,-G.] 



(I wish here to mention a number of specimens of tiny 

 Sunbirds which I have collected, in size and in the bill 

 corresponding to this species, but with plain olivaceous 

 plumage. They have been omitted from Dr. Sharpens paper. 

 They might be thought to be females or young males of 

 C, chloropygius j but among them were many males with the 

 testes large — sometimes extremely large. And some that 

 were moulting shewed the new plumage that was just 

 growing to be of the same colour as the old. These males 

 in plain plumage appear to be very numerous. 



SER. IX. VOL. III. F 



