114 GARDEN AND AVIARY BIRDS. 



taken to England, several having been taken home of late 

 years. In captivity they should be fed on honey slightly 

 diluted with water and mixed with satoo into a thin pap, 

 with maggots when obtainable. When this is not the 

 case, some crumbled yolk of hard-boiled egg should be 

 mixed up in the pap. There is no trouble in getting 

 them to feed, and they are soon reconciled to captivity. 



In any locality in England where some flowers are 

 always in bloom I believe one of our Himalayan species 

 might thrive in the open ; this is the Fire-tailed Eed 

 Honey-sucker (Aethopyga ignicauda), a very beautiful 

 species which ranges as high as 11,000 feet. But the 

 commonest species in India are birds of a low elevation. 



THE PURPLE HONEY-SUCKER (ArachnecMhra asiatica) 

 is figured on Plate V (Fig. 1) ; this figure represents the 

 full plumaged male ; the hen is olive-coloured above 

 and yellow below. After breeding the cock loses his 

 glossy purple plumage and becomes like the hen, except 

 for a long narrow purple streak running from the chin 

 down to the breast. 



This bird is found all over the Empire, but does not 

 ascend the hills above five thousand feet ; on the west 

 it goes as far as Persia, and extends eastward to Cochin 

 China, so that altogether it must be one of the most 

 abundant of all the family. It breeds more than once 

 a year, and the nest may be found at almost any 

 time. The said nest is of a somewhat oval shape and 

 hung from the tip of a branch ; it has an entrance as 

 the side, usually with a projection or eave over it. The 

 material used is grass, but the outside is coated with 



