THE HONEY PECKERS 1621 



it takes in flight; and as soon as a male has exhausted the contents of the blossoms 

 of one tree, he darts off to another, always followed by his mate. The male bird is 

 much devoted to his companion, whom he frequently entertains with a lively song; 

 and he is jealous of any intruder, darting angrily against any stray male that may 

 happen to invade his territory, and promptly expelling him from the neighborhood. 

 The nest is suspended in the centre of some mimosa tree, and is built of the down 

 of plants and cobwebs; the eggs being reddish white in ground color, variegated with 

 dark gray and violet. The adult male is brilliant green above, with the addition of 

 a violet gorget; the wings and tail being bluish black, and the under parts bright 

 yellow. The female is olive brown above, and sulphur yellow beneath. 



The Indian genera of the famil}' are five in number, four of which are included 

 in one subfamily and the fifth in another. 



THE HONEY PECKERS 

 Family DlC^ID^ 



. If we exclude from this family the white-eyes, the birds to which the above 

 name is applied comprise a group of small and mostly gayly-colored species, 

 distributed over the whole of the Oriental and a part of the Australian region, and 

 nearly allied to the sunbirds, from which they may be distinguished by the beak 

 being short and triangular, instead of long, slender, and cylindrical. Moreover, 

 while all the sunbirds have ten primary quills to the wing, in the honey peckers 

 the number of these feathers may be either ten or nine; in all cases the tail is 

 short, and the metatarsus is never elongated. In the majority of the species the 

 two sexes differ markedly in plumage, although in a few they are alike, and in 

 all instances the young resemble the females. None of them migrate, not even 

 locally; while all are remarkable for the beauty of their nests, which are frequently 

 suspended from branches, and pear-like in form. In India the family is repre- 

 sented by four genera, of which three, and among them the typical Dicceum, have 

 nine primaries, while in the other three a small tenth primary is retained. A 

 well-known representative of the typical genus is the scarlet-backed flower pecker 

 (Dic<zum ementatum), ranging from India to Sumatra and China. Still more beau- 

 tiful is the Australian diamond bird (Pardalotus affinis} , a small short-tailed species, 

 the loveliness of whose plumage it is almost impossible to describe. The general 

 color is, however, ashy gray, spotted and spangled all over with red, yellow, orange, 

 and black, with the tail coverts rich dark red. Common in some places among the 

 large gum trees of the deep forest, this bird has a remarkably loud call note, which 

 can be heard from long distances. Generally only a summer visitor to Victoria, 

 although occasionally seen there during the winter, it nests in hollow logs, or more 

 rarely in a hole in the ground. 



