570 PASSERIFORMES: DICAEIDAE CHAP. 
with their larvae and spiders; while the birds hop actively about, 
and cling to the branches and trunks of trees, like Tits or Creepers, 
or even to bushes and grass. They rarely hover before flowers 
as Humming-birds do, though frequently sucking honey. When 
feeding or singing the wings are often opened and shut alternately. 
The quick, direct flight 1s accompanied by rapid pulsations of 
the pinions, and the males chase their rivals angrily. The shrill, 
but pleasing and varied notes recall those of the Willow-Warbler. 
The pear-shaped or oval nests, woven or attached by cobwebs to 
the ends of boughs, to the under surfaces of leaves, or more rarely 
to reed-stems, are composed of grass, moss, roots, and the like, 
lined with hair, feathers, and down, and usually have a projecting 
porch. Beneath are attached as decorations leaves, twigs, lichens, 
shreds of bark, paper, and cloth, wood-borings, or caterpillars’ excreta. 
Arachnothera magna, at least occasionally, builds an open nest. 
The two or three eggs are commonly greenish- or brownish-grey, 
with purphsh, reddish-brown, yellowish, or dusky dots and spots; 
some, however, are whiter, with blackish markings, dark zones, or 
hair-streaks; while those of Arachnothera magna are brownish, 
very thickly speckled with purplish -black. Promerops cafer 
makes a cup of grass, fibres, and softer materials in forks of 
bushes, and lays creamy eggs like those of Buntings, with wavy 
lines or irregular blotches of dark brown or purplish. 
Fam. X XIX. Dicaeidae.—The “ Flower-peckers ” inhabit the 
Indian and Australian Regions as far eastwards as the Low 
Archipelago, a few possibly kindred species occupying West Africa. 
The bill is usually short, broad, and depressed, but is especially 
slender in Pholidornis, stout and Finch-like in Prionochilus ; while 
both mandibles shew minute terminal serrations. Feathers cover 
the nostrils in Pardalotus, and in life Lobornis has three small 
white rictal outgrowths. The tongue is separated into four semi- 
tubular fringeless projections. The metatarsus is never long; the 
wings are fairly so; the tail is generally short and even, but is 
rounded in Prionochilus vincens, longer in most Papuasian forms, 
and sometimes graduated, as in Pristorhamphus. Many species 
exhibit vivid combinations of blue or purple with black, relieved 
by a scarlet or an orange head, rump, or chest-patch, the lower 
surface being yellow, greyish, or greenish-white ; some, however, 
replace the blue shades by green, brown, or olive; others are quite 
plain ; and Melanocharis unicolor is perfectly black. The Diamond- 
