20 NECTARINIA FAMOSA. 



and met with them wintering in the Drakensberg kloofs in 

 July, and scattered in pairs all over the country from October 

 to November. 



Mr. T. Ayres writes from Natal: " This species is found 

 more in the inland parts of the colony, frequenting the open 

 country." He found it to be exceedingly scarce near 

 Potchefstroom ; but Mr. Barratt calls it common at the 

 Leydenburg Gold-fields and at Macamac, frequenting the 

 aloes on the sides of the hills near Rustenberg, and Mr. 

 Distant records it from Pretoria. It has also been procured 

 in Zululand by Messrs. R. B. aud J. D. S. Woodward, at 

 Eschowe. Here it " frequents the localities where sugar- 

 bushes (Proten mellifera) grow, in the large flowers of 

 which they find their favourite food. They make a whistling 

 cry as they chase one another from bush to bush, and the 

 male has a short song." 



Mr. Layard informs us that it builds a domed nest of 

 cobwebs, lichen, dry leaves and odds and ends of all kinds, 

 which is usually suspended on the outside of a bush or from 

 the branches of a tree. The eggs, generally only two in 

 number, are of a dull greyish-brown colour, minutely mottled 

 all over, 0*9 by 05 inch. It has, he remarks, a shrill, not 

 unpleasant, but short song. 



The males gradually lose their metallic colours after the 

 breeding season for a plumage resembling that of the 

 females. 



While I was in Cape Colony, in February, scarcely a day 

 passed without my seeing these lovely birds, clinging on to 

 the large flowers, generally of the aloes, fluttering and 

 twitteriug with jfleasure as they sucked the sweet nectar, or 

 captured the small insects imbedded in the blossoms. 



Although frequently assembled around the more attractive 

 plants, they are not gregarious, but only meet from their 



