72 FASSERES. 



secondaries and coverts are edged with green and violet, while a tuft of bright 

 yellow feathers under each shoulder still further enlivens this gorgeous cos- 

 tume. The female is much smaller than her mate, of a dull olive brown, 

 except the exterior feathers of her tail, which are tinged with white. The 

 brilliant adornments of the sun-birds belong, as a general rule, only to the 

 male sex, and even in the male the nuptial plumage has but a temporary ex- 

 istence, becoming developed only at the commencement of the breeding sea- 

 son, and being lost at the moult which follows the rearing of the young. At 

 all other seasons the males are nearly as simply clothed as their mates. The 

 nest of the malachite sun-bird is composed of very fine fibres, interwoven and 

 lined with soft cottony down found on the seed-vessels of many plants, and 

 ingeniously set round with various lichens, so as to give it a close resemblance 

 to the tree in which it is placed. One species has even been known to make 

 a thick spider's web the foundation of its domicile, and to cover it with little 

 bits of moss, lichens, paper, cloth, and all kinds of miscellaneous substances, 

 so as entirely to destroy its nest-like appearance, and make it look like a 

 chance bundle of scraps among the branches. 



" My house in Colombo," says Sir James Emerson Tennant, " as is usual 

 in the East, was surrounded by a verandah, up which crept, in tropical pro- 

 fusion, several species of passiflora ; to the flowers of these came the various 

 nectariniae for their morning and evening meals, rarely appearing in the heat 

 of the day. They hovered about the starry flowers, thrusting in their curved 

 bills, in search of the minute insects on which they feed ; occasionally they 

 would fly into the verandah and seize a small spider from its web or from the 

 crevices of the walls ; then they would betake themselves to the passion- 

 flowers, or to the branches of a pomegranate close by, where they plumed 

 themselves and uttered a pleasing song. If two happened to come to the 

 same flower— and from their numbers this has often occurred — a battle always 

 ensued, which ended in the vanquished bird retreating from the spot with 

 shrill piping cries, while the conqueror would take up his position upon a 

 flower or stem, and swinging his little body to and fro till his coat of bur- 

 nished steel gleamed and glistened in the sun, pour out his note of triumph. 

 All this time the wings were expanded and closed alternately, every jerk of 

 the body in A^. Asiatica and A^. Latcnia disclosing the brilliant yellow plume- 

 lets on either side of the breast." 



Sub-Family II. 

 THE GUIT-GUITS. CCEREBIN^. 



General Characteristics. — Bill longer or shorter than the head, sometimes curved 

 throughout its length, or straight and acutely conical, the base broad, and the sides 

 compressed, with the tip usually emarginaled ; the nostrils basal and lateral, and 

 protected by a hard scale ; the wings long and rather pointed ; the tail short and 

 mostly even ; the tarsi short ; the toes moderate, slender, and the outer united at 

 its base. 



These birds are natives of the warmer parts of South America, 

 where they are usually seen among flowers, searching for small 



