372 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



the nest as bottle-shaped, with a lengthened neck, suspended from 

 the end of a small branch in thick bushy trees, gardens, banks of 

 tanks, &c., the nest soft, composed of little bits of leaves, grasses, 

 fine twigs, and chips of bark, woven together with a fibrous 

 substance resembling tow ; entrance by a small circular hole at 

 the bottom, and the side lined neatly Avith seed-down ; eggs three, 

 pale greenish white, minutely speckled with dusky, which forms 

 a divided zone at the larger end. The entrance from the bottom 

 is a most unusual and extraordinary anomaly in this family, and I 

 suspect must have been accidental. Blyth states that it visits 

 Calcutta only during the cokl season, but that, before they leave, 

 most of them have assumed the nuptial dress. In Nepal it is pro- 

 bably a summer visitant only. 



235. Arachneclitlira lotenia, L. 



Certhia, apud LiNNiEUS — Blytii, Cat. 1359 — IIorsf., Cat. 

 1081— Jardine, Nat. Libr. pi. 23— Cin. polita, Sparrm., apud 

 Jerdon, Cat. 233 — Certh. purpurata, Shaw. — Edw. Birds, pi. 265. 



The Large Purple Honey-sucker. 



Descr. — Above, brilliantly glossed with metallic green and 

 purple, abdomen dull brownish-black; axillary tuft yellow and 

 red; wings and tall black; the latter slightly glossed purple; throat 

 and breast rich purple ; a narrow bright marrone collar separates 

 the purple of the breast from the black of the abdomen. 



Bill and legs black ; irides dark brown. Length 5^ inches ; 

 wing 2y^jj ; tail 1/^ ; bill at front 1 ; tarsus /y. 



The female is light dull olive-grey above, the wings brown, and 

 the tail slightly glossed black ; beneath pale yellow. 



A specimen in the Museum As. See, Calcutta, has the winter 

 or currucaria plumage Df the last, viz., a central glossy green stripe 

 on the throat and breast, and a spot on the shoulders of the wings ; 

 otherwise as in the female. I do not recollect seeing the bird in 

 this plumage in IMalabar, where I had many opportunities of observ- 

 in*^ it, and rather think that it must have been a young bird. 

 This fine species, though sometimes confounded with the last. 



