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household bread, one part each of yolk of egg and ants’ eggs,

and a little Abrahams’ food ; sometimes I add a little fine pea-

flour. I moisten this either with a sprinkling of water or an

admixture of potato. I also give grapes, orange, apple and

sometimes pear; but the last is hardly ever eaten.


Gould was certainly wrong in supposing that this species

was almost, if not altogether, frugivorons; for insedls of all

kinds are eaten with the greatest avidity, and my birds will

swallow cockroaches as long as I can supply them, gulping

them down whole one after another.



HODGSON’S FRUITSUCKER.


(Chloropsis hodgsoui.)


By H. C. HESEETON.


This is a handsome bird, a native of S.E. India, and a

member of a species rarely imported (I found it very delicate to

bring over) but which, when here and properly looked after, is

much hardier and easier to cater for than many less rare birds.


The plumage of body, wings and tail is a bright grass

green ; the inner web of principal wing-feathers being nearly

black ; the whole of the plumage being well glossed ; a dark

y-ellow patch on forehead tinged with orange at base of bill ;

throat a bright metallic blue, this colour forming a bib meeting

in the centre, not like the Malabar, one of which I have, the blue

in the latter being a stripe on each side of the mouth. The blue

bib of Hodgsoni is followed by another of black extending well

-down on the breast and edged by a pale 3 T ellow border which

fades into the bod) r colour of green. Beak blackish and slightly^

curved; feet and legs blue-green. There is a small patch of

ver} 1, light blue on the extreme part of wing-butts but this can¬

not be seen unless the wings are extended.


This bird seems to be purely arboreal. I have never seen

it on the floor of my aviary, its food and water being placed

amongst the branches of the tree. The food consists of a few

ants’ eggs, fruit, and about twelve mealworms per da\ r ; the

worms are preferred when they have just cast their skins, being-

soft, but not soft enough evidently as the bird beats them against

its perch, runs them thro’ its beak several times, throws them in

the air, catches and swallows them. It is fond of bananas,

plums, and soft pears, and I make these the “base” food. It

drinks or rather sips b} r putting its long tongue in the water,

and bathes every da}\



