12 JO URNAL, BOMB A Y NA TURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



(363) Chalcoparia phcenicotis. — The Ruby Cheek. 

 Hume, No. 233 Sex.; Oates, No. 911. 



Common in North Cachar and in the plains during the cold 

 weather. This bird is undoubtedly not a Sun-bird, but one of Gates' 

 reasons for dividing it from that group cannot be sustained, 



A miscroscope strong enough to show that the margins of the 

 bill are not serrated will also show that the tongue has a distinct 

 bush at the end, the top being divided into several points. 



In habits it is true that the bird is wonderfully like Zosterops, but 

 in nidification, on the other hand, it is wonderfully like the Sun-birds, 

 only that seed-down is not much used in the construction of its 

 nest. There was, or may be still, a nest in the Society's posses- 

 sion, which I sent to it some time in 1887 or 1888, a beautiful little 

 brown pear-shaped affair made of fine fibres and other materials, 

 and looking, as Hume says, as if made of hair : only in this case 

 of brown hair instead of black. 



The only two eggs which I have might easily be mistaken for eggs 

 of AracJmecthra asiatica^ but when closely looked into the markings 

 are seen to be of a very pure inky-grey, having none of the brown or 

 purple tint so common in the eggs of that bird ; the ground is either 

 white or very pale grey, but there is so little visible that it is hard to 

 say which it is. 



The two eggs measure -72" X -48" and '71" X "47". 



