114 GARDEN AND AVIARY BIRDS. 
be easily watched ; and their nests are often quite acces- 
sible. Of course, I do not recommend them to be caged 
in India, but it is worth mentioning that they can be 
taken to England, several having been taken home 
of late years. In captivity they should be fed on honey 
slightly diluted with water and mixed with satoo into 
a thin pap, with maggots when obtainable. When this 
is not the case, some crumbled yolk of hard-boiled egg 
should be mixed up in the pap. There is no trouble 
in getting them to feed, and they are soon reconciled to 
captivity. 
In any locality in England where some flowers are 
always in bloom I believe one of our Himalayan species 
might thrive in the open; this is the Firetailed Red 
Honey-sucker (Aethopyga ignicauda), a very beautiful 
species which ranges as high as 11,000 feet. But the 
commonest species in India are birds of a low elevation. 
THE PurPpLE HONEyY-SUCKER (Arachnechthra asiatica) 
is figured on Plate V (Fig. 1); this figure represents 
the full plumaged male; the hen is olive-coloured above 
and yellow below. After breeding the cock loses his 
glossy purple plumage and becomes like the hen, ex- 
cept for a long narrow purple streak running from the 
chin down to the breast. 
This bird is found all over the Empire, but does not 
ascend the hills above five thousand feet ; on the west 
it goes as far as Persia, and extends eastward to Cochin 
China, so that altogether it must be one of the most 
abundant of all the family. It breeds more than once 
a year, and the nest may be found at almost any 
