SUNBIRDS 223 



to keep out the sun and rain when the nest is exposed 

 to them. 



The nest is cosily lined with silk cotton. The 

 aperture at the side acts as a window as well as a 

 door ; the hen, who alone incubates, sits on her eggs, 

 looking out of the little window with her chin rest- 

 ing comfortably on the sill. 



Two eggs only are laid. The smallness of the clutch 

 indicates that there is not a great deal of loss of life 

 in the nest. The immunity of the sunbird is due 

 chiefly to the inaccessibility of the nest. The latter 

 is usually at the extreme tip of a slender branch upon 

 which no bird of any size can obtain a foothold. 

 When a sunbird does make a mistake and place its 

 nest in an unsuitable place, the predaceous crows de- 

 vour the young ones, as they did recently in the case 

 of a nest built in the middle of an ingadulsis hedge in 

 my compound at Fyzabad. 



In conclusion, I should like to settle one disputed 

 point in the economy of the purple sunbird (A . asiatica). 

 Jerdon stated that the cock doffs his gay plumage 

 after the breeding season and assumes a dress like 

 that of the hen except for a purple strip running 

 longitudinally from the chin to the abdomen. 



Blanford denied this. He appears to have based 

 his denial on the fact that cocks in full plumage are 

 to be seen at all seasons of the year. There is no 

 month in the year in which I have not seen a cock 

 purple sunbird in nuptial plumage. I used, therefore, 

 to think that Blanford was right and Jerdon wrong. 



Afterwards I came across the following passage by 



