^THOPYGA. 249 



Family NECTARINIID^. 

 Subfamily NECTARINIIN^. 



^thopyga seherise, Tu-l-. The Himalayan YcUrnr-had-cd 

 Svn-hird. 



yEthopyga miles {Hodf/s.), Jercl. B. huh i. p. WiVl. 

 -'Etliopyga gonlparipiisis {Lath.), Hume, Itovijh Draff X. ^- H. 

 no. '22'}. 



Accordiug to Mr. Hodgson's MSS. and drawings, the Himalayan 

 Tellow-backed Sun-bird begins to lay in April, the young being 

 fully fledged in July. The nest is purse or rather florence-flask 

 shaped, suspended from a twig ; about 6 inches in length and 3 in 

 breadth at the widest part, with an oval entrance (commencing 

 about 2 inches below the point of suspension) about 1| long by 1|- 

 inch broad. There is no portico or projection aboAe the entrance. 

 The nest is composed of black moss and other fine roots, with a 

 little moss compactly interwoven with some cobwebs, and lined 

 \^ith silky cotton-like fibre. The eggs are two or three in number, 

 greyish white, speckled with brown, and measuring about 0-65 by 

 0-45 inch ; in shape rather broad ovals, pointed towards the 

 small end. 



Mr. 0. Moller writes to me from Sikhim :— " This beautiful 

 Honey-sucker is very common here, but I have only succeeded in 

 finding 4 nests of it, 3 of \\\\\q\\ were found in May, and one in 

 August ; the nest is always suspended from or clos(> to the end of a 

 twig, 3 to 4 feet from the ground; the number of eggs is 2 or 3." 



The nest is an elegant hanging purse of an elongated pear-shajie 

 suspended from the petiole of a large leaf, or 7 inches in 

 length and 'I-o in external diameter, with an oval entrance on one 

 side from 2 to 2-5 inches from the bottom, from 1-78 to 2 inches 

 high by 1-0 to 1-25 broad. The interior ca\ity below the edge of 

 the opening is about 1 -5 inch deep and a little less in diameter. 



The external portion of the nest is composed entirely of fine 

 black rootlets loosely filled with grass, in which a few dry blades 

 of grass have been incorporated longitudinally as if to strengthen 

 and stiffen the structure. Interiorly the entire nest is lined «ith 

 extremely fine pale brown flower-stems of flowering- grasses, and 

 the whole bottom of the cavity is thickly filled \iitli fine silky seed- 

 down. 



The eggs are pretty regular ovals, some slightly pyriform. some 

 slightly more elongated. The shell very fine and smooth, but 

 quite devoid of gloss. The ground-colour is pure white, and this 

 is finely streaked and speckled pretty thickly about the large end, 

 where there is sometimes an irregular cap or zone, and rather 

 thinly else\\'here, with a dull greyish purple varying from a sort of 

 chocolate in some spots to almost sepia in others. Four eggs 

 measured from 0-57 to 0-6 in length by 0-45 to 0-47 in breadth. 



