THE SUNBIRDS 1619 



beautiful pale blue. The green-backed white-eye has the crown and upper parts 

 olive green; the wings and tail are brown, edged with olive green; the throat and 

 under tail coverts light greenish yellow; and the breast and under parts gray, 

 tinged with brown. 



THE SUNBIRDS 







Family NECTARINIID^ 



The sunbirds are a tropical family corresponding in the Old World to the 

 humming birds of the New, and are characterized by the long, slender, curved bill, 

 with the sides compressed along to the tip, which is acute, and in which both man- 

 dibles are finely serrated for the terminal third of their edges; the wings being of 

 moderate size, and consisting of ten primaries; the tail being more or less elongated, 

 with the middle feathers sometimes prolonged beyond the rest; the metatarsus be- 

 ing usually short, and the toes of moderate size, the claws being curved and sharp. 

 The sexes are very different; the males having bright metallic tints in the plumage, 

 while the females are dull in color. Most numerously represented in the African 

 continent, the sunbirds are fairly plentiful in the Indian region, and likewise occur 

 in Australasia. 



The birds of the genus Nectarinia have the bill long, curved, and 

 yP ! Ca . ' acute; while the wings are moderate and rounded; the tail broad and 

 slightly rounded, with the central feathers lengthened and narrowed; 

 and the metatarsus short, and covered in front with very broad scales. The ma- 

 jority of these sunbirds are found in Africa, but the Australian sunbird represents 

 the genus in Australasia. 



One of the best known of the South-African sunbirds is the mala- 

 1 chite sunbird (N, famosa). According to Captain Shelley, this spe- 

 cies is partial to the blossoms of the aloe, among which it finds an 

 abundance of its insect food; but it feeds also upon saccharine juice, extracted from 

 blossoms by means of its long, brush-tipped tongue. It has a shrill, not unpleasing, 

 but short song. When pursuing a rival uttering a piercing scream, it is very com- 

 bative, and if two males meet about the same bush, a fight is sure to ensue, to the 

 great detriment of the beautiful tail feathers. The males lose their beauty in the 

 winter season; and the young birds are just like the females. The domed nest is 

 built of cobwebs, lichens, and dry leaves, and usually suspended on the outside of a 

 bush, or the branch of a tree; the eggs, two in number, are of a dull grayish-brown 

 color, minutely mottled all over. In Natal this sunbird frequents the open country, 

 feeding upon the nectar of the various kinds of aloes, and also on that of some spe- 

 cies of lilies, which are numerous in many of the valleys. Mr. Andersson observes 

 that ' ' this suubird is permanently established where it has once taken up its abode. 

 Its food consists of insects and the saccharine juices of flowers, in search of which 

 it flits incessantly from one flowering tree to another, now settling and now hover- 

 ing, but glittering all the while in the sunshine like some brilliant insect or precious 

 gem. The male, in addition to the beauty of its plumage, possesses a very pleasant 



