CINNYRIS SOUIMANGA. 69 



their pursuit of food into the village gardens. Their flight is 

 rapid and irregular, but is only sustained for a short distance. 



M. Grandidier states that the males are most numerous, 

 but this may be owing to the bright colours of the male 

 catching the eye more readily than the dull plumage of the 

 females. He further tells us that their little short cry of 

 " tsouhi - tsouhi " is mostly to be heard in the morning. 

 Mr. B. Newton calls "the song strong, loud, and very like 

 a Willow Wren's." He found on October 1, while paddling 

 up the Hivondrona river, " a nest of this bird, containing 

 two eggs, on the bank, almost overhanging the water ; it 

 was a domed one, and was very prettily placed in some tall 

 grass, the blue flowers of a Lobelia bicolor almost closing 

 the entrance. It is composed outwardly of broad leaves 

 of grass, decayed, and a little moss; over the entrance it 

 has a sort of projecting pouch of a finer grass, and inside it is 

 lined with down of some plant. The eggs, which were hard- 

 set, are greyish white thickly freckled with light hair brown, 

 so as to show but little of the ground colour. They are "59 

 inch in length by '44 inch in breadth." 



M. G-randidier describes the nest as small and oval, 

 suspended from a bush, generally on the bank of a stream. It 

 is composed of fine grass, leaves and moss, sometimes bound 

 together with spiders' web ; in the interior there is little or 

 no down ; the entrance is at the side. They lay three to four 

 eggs of a dull greenish white, spotted and streaked with rufous 

 and brown, mostly so towards the thicker end, where these 

 markings often form a zone. They vary in size, but average 

 0-6 by 0-44 inch. 



With regard to the great utility of this and all species of 

 Sunbirds, I cannot do better than quote Mr. G. F. Scott 

 Elliot : " The flowers are often visited by Sunbirds ; Nectarinia 

 souimangu was the commonest near Fort Dauphin. The 



