OPEN NESTS I 165 



webs or leaf stems and seed capsules, and in some 

 cases is lined with a few soft white feathers. Other 

 types of nests are suspended from the tip of some 

 hanging twig of a vine or creeping plant. One of 

 these is formed by De Laland's Plover-crest (Cephal- 

 lepis delalandi), which is more or less cone-shaped, 

 and the materials interwoven with a cluster of leaves. 

 Another is the work of the Brazilian Wood Nymph 

 {Thalurania glaucopis). Vegetable fibres and lichens, 

 cemented with spiders' webs, form the outside, the 

 inside being lined with down and similar soft 

 material. The nest of the Red -throated Sapphire 

 Hylocharis sapphivina) is suspended in a very similar 

 manner from a slender drooping twig. Then we have 

 that exceedingly beautiful type of nest suspended 

 from the extremities of some palm or other ribbon- 

 like leaf.. This type largely prevails amongst the 

 Hermit Humming-birds {Phaethornis), the nests being 

 funnel-shaped, tapering off to a point and conforming 

 to the shape of the lance-like extremities of the leaf 

 to which they are attached. In some cases the nest 

 itself forms an artificial terminal point to the leaf, 

 notably so in that of the Pygmy Hermit (P. pyginccus). 

 The usual materials are the delicate fibres of certain 

 plants, the cottony down of certain seed vessels, 

 bound together and to the leaf by masses of spiders' 

 webs. Other nests in this group are formed of slender 

 tendrils and roots, but the attachment is again secured 

 by the aid of silk-like and tenacious spiders' webs. 



