CINNYRIS MEDIOCRIS 79 



busli close to a rock, so that the bird had to fly round the 

 bush to get to it. In appearance they exactly resemble the 

 masses made and collected by one of our commonest (South 

 African) spiders ; and I have more than once seen an 

 inhabited spider's web forming part and parcel of the nest. 

 Whether the nest was built in the spider's web, or whether 

 the spider found it a convenient place and selected it herself, 

 or was brought with a bit of web by the bird, and then took 

 up her abode and enlarged it, I cannot tell ; but there the 

 incongruous allies lived; and each brought up her brood, or 

 would have done so, had not I harried them both." 



Cinnyris mediocris. (PI. 3, fig. 2.) 



Cinnyris mediocris, Shelley, P. Z. S. 1885, p. 223 Kilimanjaro ; 1889, p. 

 365 Useri B. ; Sharpe, Ibis, 1891, p. 593 Kikuyu, Sotik ; Beichen. 

 Vog. Deutsch 0. Afr. p. 212 (1893); Shelley, B. Afr. I. No. 43 

 (1896) ; Neumann, J. f. 0. 1898, p. 241 Mau ; Hartert in Ansorge's 

 " Under Afr. Sun," App. p. 250 (1899) Uganda. 



Adult Male. Similar to C. clialybeus, but differs in the bill being slightly 

 more curved, and the abdomen pale olive shaded with yellow. It resembles 

 C. chalybeus in having the head, neck, back and lesser wing-coverts golden 

 green, but the upper tail-coverts and the narrow metallic collar are of a 

 greenish rather than a violet shaded steel blue followed by a deep scarlet 

 chest band flanked by yellow axillary tufts. Total length 46 inches, culmen 

 0-7, wing 2-1, tail 2, tarsus 0-7. 



Adult Female. Above and sides of the head olive green. Beneath olive 

 yellow, showing the dusky olive centres to the feathers, except on the 

 centre of the abdomen which inclines to sulphur yellow ; axillaries sulphur 

 yellow ; under wing-coverts white partially washed with yellow. Total 

 length 39 inches, culmen 065, wing 2, tail 1-7, tarsus 065. 



The Masai Double-collared Sunbird ranges from Kiliman- 

 jaro in Masai Land to Sotik (0° 35' S. lat., 35° 25', E. long.). 



The type of the species was discovered by Sir Harry 

 Johnston on the Kilimanjaro Mountain at an elevation of 

 12,000 feet, who writes : " Fairly abundant. Only remarked 



