XI 



HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS 



" The grey eggs in the golden sun-bird's nest 



Its treasures are." The Light of Asia. 



THE common little yellow honeysuckers, Arach- 

 nechthra zeylonica, 1 certainly deserve one of the 

 first places in any record of the birds of gardens 

 in Calcutta, for there are very few species that are 

 so common or so attractive. The flowering shrubs 

 are constantly alive with their twinkling wings, 

 their cheerfully imperative little calls are to be 

 heard from dawn to sunset, and they have such a 

 happy audacity in their choice of nesting-places that 

 ignorance of their ways can hardly be accounted for 

 save by wilful blindness. The male birds (Plate VII.) 

 are surprisingly beautiful in gleaming crowns of 

 metallic green, violet throats, rich reddish-brown 

 wings and backs, and bright canary-yellow under- 

 parts ; and the females, although very quietly dressed, 

 are so sprightly and so delicately formed as to be 

 hardly less attractive. It is indeed a joy to see a 



1 They are a little larger than wrens, but much more slenderly built 

 than the latter. 



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