922 SUGGE—SUN-BIRD 
SUGGE (Prompt. Parvul. ed. Way, p. 483), the apparently 
obsolete form of SEGGE (p. 825) which still persists. 
SUMMER-DUCK, a name in America for 4x sponsa (p. 171) ; 
-SNIPE, the commonest name of the common SANDPIPER, Actitis 
hypoleuca (p. 811); -TEAL, the GARGANEY (p. 309). 
SUN-BIRD, a name more or less in use for many years,! and 
now generally accepted as that of a group of over 100 species of 
small birds, but when or by whom it was first applied is uncertain. 
Most of them are remarkable for their gaudy plumage, and, though 
those known to the older naturalists were for a long while referred 
to the genus Certhia (TREE-CREEPER), or some other group, they 
are now fully recognized as forming a valid Family Nectarinide, 
from the name Nectarinia invented in 1811 by Illiger. They 
inhabit the Ethiopian, Indian and Australian Regions,” and, with 
some notable exceptions, the species mostly have but a limited 
range. They are considered to have their nearest allies in the 
NECTARINIA, ANTHREPTES, 
(After Swainson.) 
Meliphagide (HONEY-EATER, p. 428) and the members of the genus 
ZOSTEROPS ; but their relations to the last require further investiga- 
tion. Some of them are called “ Humming-birds” by Anglo-Indians 
and colonists, but with that group, as before indicated (HUMMING- 
BIRD, pp. 442, 443), the Sun-birds, being true Passeres, have nothing 
to do. Though part of the plumage in many Sun-birds gleams 
with metallic lustre, they owe much of their beauty to feathers 
which are not lustrous, yet almost as vivid,? and the most wonderful 
combination of the brightest colours—scarlet, crimson, purple, 
blue, green or yellow—is often seen in one and the same bird. 
One group, however, is dull in hue, and but for the presence in 
' Certainly since 1826 (cf. Stephens, Gen. Zool. xix. pt. 1, p. 229). Swainson 
(Classif. B. i. p. 145) says they are ‘so called by the natives of Asia in allusion 
to their splendid and shining plumage,” but gives no hint as to the nation or 
language wherein the name originated. By the French they have been much 
longer known as Sowimangas, from the Madagascar name of one of the species 
given in 1658 by Flacourt as Sowmangha. 
* One species occurs in Beloochistan, which is perhaps outside of the Indian 
Region (¢f. suprd, p. 334), but the fact of its being found there may be a reason 
for including that country within the Region, just as the presence of another 
species in the Jordan valley induces zooeraphers to regard the Ghor as an outlier 
of the Ethiopian Region. 
° Cf. supra, pp. 97, 98, and Gadow, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1882, pp. 409-421, pls. 
XXvii. xxviii. 
