NECTABINIID^} CINNYRIS 289 



165. Cinnyris amethystinus bradshawi. Bradshaw's Suribird. 

 Cinnyris bradshawi, Sharpe, Ibis, 1898, p. 137. 



Description. ' 1 This seems to be a small form of C. amethystinus 

 and has metallic purplish upper tail-coverts. It is closely allied to 

 C. deminutus of Angola, and has even a smaller bill than that race. 

 The general colour of the plumage is velvety-brown and not black, 

 as in C. amethystinus." (Sharpe.) 



Distribution. From the Zambesi (Bradshaw), to Witu, on the 

 coast of British East Africa. 





166. Cinnyris kirki. Kirk's Sunbird. 



Nectarinia amethystinia, Kirk, Ibis, 1864, p. 320. 



Cinnyris kirkii, Shelley, Monogr. Cimiyridce, p. '273, pi. 85 (1877) ; 



Sharpe, cd. La-yard's B. S. Afr. p. 317 (1884). 

 Cinnyris amethystina kirki, Gadoiv, Cat. B. M. ix, p. 97 (1884). 

 Clmlcomitra kirki, Shelley, B. Afr. i, p. 4 (1896). 



Description. Adult male. "Differs from the male of C. 

 amethystinus in being rather smaller and in having the upper 

 tail-coverts blackish-brown like the back, with no portion of them 

 metallic" (Shelley). 



Iris dusky ; bill, legs and feet black (Ayres). 



Length 4-80 ; wing 2-55 ; tail 1'85 ; tarsus O65 ; culmen 0.95. 



Adult female. Similar in plumage to the female of C. 

 amethystinus. 



Wing 2-45 ; tail 1-65 ; tarsus 0'60 ; culmen 0'95 (Shelley). 



Distribution. From Salisbury, Hartley and the Umvuli River, 

 in Mashonaland, to the Zambesi, and thence northward to Lamu 

 on the east coast. 



Habits. Sir J. Kirk found this species on the Zambesi, feeding 

 with other Sunbirds on low flower-bearing bushes, " searching the 

 corallas for insects, and probably sucking the saccharine juices." 

 The Eev. F. A. Buxton writes in the "Ibis" for 1881, p. 125; that 

 at Mombasa, on the east coast, " This and all the preceding species 

 of this genus are very fond of sucking the sap which flows from the 

 young shoots of the cocoa-nut tree, when cut, as it oozes into the 

 calabashes put for its reception." 



On the Umvuli Eiver, in Mashonaland, Messrs. Jameson and 

 Ayres met with this Sunbird towards the end of August and 

 beginning of September, feeding, along with C. gutturalis, on the 

 flowers of the " German- sausage tree." 

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