118 GARDEN AND AVIARY BIRDS. 



specimens of them alive, and they can be kept in captivi- 

 ty. They always have rather short tails, but their bills 

 may be either thick or thin and, when looked at under 

 a hand-lens are found to be saw-edged, as are also those 

 of the Honey-suckers. 



THE SCARLET-BACKED FLOWER-PECKER (Dicceum cruen- 

 tatum) is represented in Fig. 5 of Plate I. Although 

 barely larger than a big bee, the male which is the 

 sex figured is a very showy little thing, with his cream- 

 coloured breast and glossy black upper plumage decorated 

 by a broad splash of scarlet from crown to tail. The 

 hen is olive-green with a black tail, and a dash of scarlet 

 on the back just at the root of it. The young are like her. 

 The exact range of this minute bird is not known, but' it 

 is not uncommon in the eastern parts of India, and 

 in Burma, whence it spreads even to South China and 

 Sumatra. It is common about Calcutta, but I never saw 

 it wild there. It breeds from March onwards, building 

 a little oval nest of grass and the down of plants, which 

 is hung from the tip of a high branch ; the two or three 

 eggs it contains are pure white. 



Occasionally this bird might have been obtained from 

 the late Mr. W. Rutledge, the only dealer I have known 

 to have it. When several are in an ordinary cage together, 

 they seem to be peaceable enough, but I found on buying 

 two cocks and a hen and turning them out into a large 

 verandah cage, that the cocks fought like fiends, and soon 

 both were dead. They appeared not to care for the 

 company of other little birds, but were not aggressive to 

 them. Mr. E. W. Harper succeeded in sending this 



