SUNBIRDS 221 



ordinary attitudes in their attempts to procure honey. 

 When there is no convenient point d'appui they 

 hover like humming birds, on rapidly vibrating wings, 

 and while so doing explore with their long tongues 

 the recesses of honeyed flowers. To quote Aitken, " be- 

 tween whiles they skip about, slapping their sides 

 with their tiny wings, spreading their tails like fans, 

 and ringing out their cheery refrain. As they pass 

 from one tree to another they traverse the air in a 

 succession of bounds and sportive spirals." Verily 

 the existence of a sunbird is a happy one ! 



The nest of the sunbird is one of the most wonderful 

 pieces of architecture in the world, and it is the work 

 of the hen alone. While she is working like a Trojan, 

 her gay young spark of a husband is drinking 

 riotously of nectar ! The nest is a hanging one, and 

 is usually suspended from a branch of a bush or a 

 tree, and not infrequently from the rafter of the 

 verandah of an inhabited bungalow ; sunbirds show 

 little fear of man. 



The nest is commenced by cobwebs being wound 

 round and round the branch from which the nest 

 will hang. Cobweb is the cement most commonly 

 employed by birds. To this pieces of dried grass, 

 slender twigs, fibres, roots, or other material are added 

 and made to adhere by the addition of more cobweb. 



The completed nest, which usually hangs in a 

 most conspicuous place, often passes for a small 

 mass of rubbish that has been pitched into a bush, 

 and, in view of the multifarious nature of the material 

 used by the sunbird, there is every excuse for mis- 



