462 MELIPHAGID.E, OR HONEY-SUCKERS. UPUPID.E. 



nothing more than a shrill cry. The Sun-Birds range over 

 Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean ; and certain species, also 

 included in this family, are natives of South America. The 

 Superb Promerops of New Guinea is four feet in length, from 

 the extremity of the bill to the end of the tail ; the tail being 

 extremely long in proportion to the body, which is delicate and 

 slender. In this respect it is analogous to the Birds of Paradise, 

 which are inhabitants of the same region ; and it also resembles 

 them in the metallic lustre of its feathery covering. The head, 

 neck, and under surface of the body are glittering green ; and 

 the feathers which cover these parts have the softness of velvet. 

 The back is of a changeable violet hue ; and the wings, which 

 possess a velvety texture, appear, according to the light in which 

 they are held, blue, violet, or deep black. The feathers of the 

 tail and of the wing-coverts have the brilliancy of polished steel. 



417. In the MELIPHAGID^E, or Honey -suckers, a family 

 peculiar to New Holland and the neighbouring islands, the 

 characters exhibited by the typical groups appear softened down, 

 as it were ; so that their conformation is less peculiar. Thus 

 the bill and legs are stronger ; and the powers of flight are less 

 conspicuous. The tongue is still adapted for suction ; being 

 furnished with a pencil of delicate filaments at its extremity ; but 

 it is not nearly so extensible as in the Humming-Birds and Sun- 

 Birds ; and the branches of the os hyoides do not pass round the 

 skull. Besides the juices of flowers, and the insects obtained 

 with them, many of these Birds feed on berries, for which their 

 greater strength of bill adapts them ; and one species is said to 

 pick holes in the bark, and to draw forth insects from these, by 

 means of its long tongue, very much in the manner of the Wood- 

 pecker. The Honeysuckers deposit their eggs in cup-shaped 

 nests, placed in the fork of small branches near the ground. 



418. Of the more aberrant families of this order, we may 

 first mention that of UPUPHWE, or Hoopoes, which seems to 

 connect it with the family CORVID^E among the Conirostres ; for 

 whilst some of the species it includes are evidently allied closely 

 to the groups we have been considering, others (and among these 

 the Hoopoe itself) show an affinity to some forms of the Crow 





