236 NECTARIN1ID/E. 



plumage olive yellow with distinct broad black shaft -stripes ; greater wing 

 coverts and tertiaries olive yellow with black shafts ; primaries and secondaries 

 dark brown margined with olive yellow ; tail olive yellow, each feather with a 

 band near the end, followed on all but the centre pair by a lighter patch of 

 pale yellowish ; sides of the head like the back, but paler ; the entire under 

 plumage pale yellowish, each feather with a broad streak of black. Bill 

 black ; iris brown ; leg orange yellow ; claws yellow. 



Length. 7 inches; tail 2; wing 37 ; tarsus O'8 ; bill from gape i'8. The 

 female is smaller. 



Hab. Nepaul, Sikkim, Assam, Khasia hills, Chittagong, Arracan, south- 

 ward to Pahpoon, Tenasserim, Burmah and Pegu. Common in the Arracan 

 and Tenasserim divisions, also in the Thoungyeen Valley. Abundant over 

 many portions of Pegu (A. attrala), especially in the evergreen forests of 

 the Pegu hills in the northern portion of the division. In both Sikkim and 

 Nepaul, it is extremely common in the hills and valleys from an elevation of 

 about two to five thousand feet, descending in the winter, when it is found 

 as a straggler in the Dears and Terai. It breeds in Sikkim during May, 

 building an excessively massive, deep cup-shaped nest, composed of vegetable 

 fibre densely felted together, externally intermingled with portions of fine 

 skeleton leaves and internally lined with soft grass. The nest is said by Mr. 

 Gammie to be a neat structure usually suspended from about the middle of the 

 under surface of a large plantain leaf, by numerous threads of plantain stem fibre 

 attached to rather more than half the rim of the cup put through the blade of the 

 leaf and knotted on the upper side. Eggs, 3 in number, moderately elongated 

 ovals, considerably pointed and compressed towards the small end. The shell 

 is fine and compact and has a very fair amount of gloss. The ground is a 

 drab or sepia brown with occasionally a decided purplish tinge, and they are 

 minutely stippled and speckled all over, but most densely so about the large 

 end, with a deep purple which is almost black. In length they vary from 

 0-85 to 0-91 inch, and in breadth from 0-62 to 0-63. . 



742. Arachnothera modesta (By ton), Biyth, J. A. S. B. xii. 



p. 981 ; xv. p. 43 (1846) ; id., Cat. B. Mus t As. Soc. p. 222 ; Bp. C. A. i. 

 p. 410; Stol.,J.A. S. B. xxxix. p. 302; Hume, Sir. F. 1874, p. 473; 

 1875, p. 85 ; Biyth, B. Burnt, p. 140 ; Hume and D civ., Sir. F. vi. pp. 176, 

 507; Shelley, M&nogr. Nect. p. 353, pi. 113, fig. I ; Oates, B. Br. Burrn. 

 p. 329 ; Gadow, Cat. B. Br. Mus. ix. p. 107. Anthreptes modesta, Eyton, 

 P. Z. S. 1839, p. 105. The GREY-BREASTED SPIDER-HUNTER. 



Upper surface of the body yellowish olive ; the centres of the feathers of 

 the forehead and crown more dusky with black shaft stripes ; wings of the 

 same colour as the back, with the inner webs of the greater coverts and 

 quills brownish black ; tail yellowish olive with a broad terminal band, and the 

 inner webs of all but the two centre feathers black, and having a clear white 



