118 GARDEN AND AVIARY BIRDS. 
specimens of them alive, and they can be kept in captivi- 
ty. They always have rather short tails, but their bills 
may be either thick or thin and, when looked at under 
a hand-lens are found to be saw-edged, as are also those 
of the Honey-suckers. 
THE SCARLET-BACKED FLOWER-PECKER (Dicwum cruen- 
tatum) 1s represented in Fig. 5 of Plate I. Although 
barely larger than a big bee, the male—which is the 
sex figured—is a very showy little thing, with his cream- 
coloured breast and glossy black upper plumage decorated 
by a broad splash of scarlet from crown to tail. The 
hen is olive-green with a black tail, and a dash of scarlet 
on the back just at the root of it. The young are like her. 
The exact range of this minute bird is not known, but it 
is not uncommon in the eastern parts of India, and 
in Burma, whence it spreads even to South China and 
Sumatra. It is common about Calcutta, but I never saw 
it wild there. It breeds from March onwards, building 
a little oval nest of grass and the down of plants, which 
is hung from the tip of a high branch; the two or three 
eggs it contains are pure white. 
Occasionally this bird might have been obtained from 
the late Mr. W. Rutledge, the only dealer I have known 
to have it. When several are in an ordinary cage together, 
they seem to be peaceable enough, but I found on buying 
two cocks and a hen and turning them out into a large 
verandah cage, that the cocks fought like fiends, and soon 
both were dead. They appeared not to care for the 
company of other little birds, but were not aggressive 60 
them. Mr. E. W. Harper sucveeded in sending this. 
