INTRODUCTION. 159 



favourite food. Some of the Proteae are remarkable 

 for the quantity of juice afforded by them ; from 

 one, provincially called the sugar-tree, the juice is 

 collected from the bottom of the flowers, and is 

 sometimes boiled down to a thick syrup for the 

 purpose of preserving fruits. Vast numbers perch 

 themselves on the edge of the corollas, for the pur-* 

 pose of collecting the sweet juice ; and one species, 

 from its song, is often kept in cages, where it is 

 maintained, " with difficulty, on sugar and water."* 

 This would seem to show that these juices cannot 

 alone afford them support. Sloane represents the 

 American Ccereba coerulea as feeding on the fruit of 

 the sugar-cane, t 



Among the Sun-birds, which also are constantly 

 plunging their bill into flowers, we have no doubt 

 that dissection will exhibit insects also, and in a 

 greater proportion, according as we find the struc- 

 ture most developed. In most other forms of the 

 family we find the bill much stronger, and the edges 

 either rugged or very irregularly toothed; but in 

 Melithreptus we have that member stronger still, and 

 entirely unbroken on the edges, running smoothly 

 to a sharp tip. This we would also consider in a 

 great measure as insectivorous ; and we have seve- 

 ral instances among tenuirostral birds, whose curved 

 attenuated bill is a very successful instrument in 

 searching out minute insects. The various Dendro- 

 colapti show a most remarkable curvature, which 



* Barrow, Travels in South Africa, p. 62. 

 f Latham, quoted from. 



