74 Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 



mouse, much more than of the Creeper, in its actions. It has a 

 curious jerking flap of the wings, opening and closing them like 

 Tichodruma muraria. Occasionally I have seen two rivals for 

 the favours of a female singing on the top of a tree, and 

 puffing out the brilliant orange and red axillary tufts, which 

 only at such times are at all conspicuous. The female during 

 the winter continually repeats the same monotonous note, but 

 almost always remains stationary, or creeping slowly about in 

 the very centre of a bush. One female had her quarters in 

 a dense zizyphus-tree fifty yards from our tent, and was used 

 as a decoy-bird by one of our party, who used to go and sit 

 under the tree every morning for a fortnight, and would bring- 

 back two or three males, allured to their destruction by this 

 fatal siren, who never left her retreat at the report of the piece. 

 Alas for humanity ! on the morning of our departure, her 

 good service to this treacherous collector was rewarded by her 

 own death, to be embalmed alongside of her many deceived 

 admirers. 



The female plumage is always brown-grey above, lightish olive- 

 grey beneath, with lightish-yellow vent and under tail-coverts; the 

 tail black, with metallic-green reflexions. The male varies much, 

 and does not appear to attain the nuptial dress till after Christ- 

 mas, which he loses again in the summer. Not more than one in 

 four of the males we shot in January was in full plumage, the 

 brillant metallic reflexions of the back, throat, and breast being- 

 interrupted by many brown feathers ; and I have several times 

 taken birds who had paired, and were breeding, in this incom- 

 plete livery. We ascertained that this state of plumage is cer- 

 tainly not the mark of immature birds, as it is always accompanied 

 by the bright axillary tufts, which the young birds do not 

 acquire till after their first moult, prior to which they have the 

 sombre dress of the female, but with a lighter-coloured breast. 



In form and size Nectarinia osea resembles N. asiatica, Lath., 

 but has the upper portion of the axillary tufts rich red, instead 

 of orange, and has the metallic reflexions of the back and throat 

 bright green, instead of dark purple, which colour is only shown 

 on the lower part of the breast and the forehead. It is also not 

 far removed from N. affinis, Riipp., from Abyssinia, but diff"ers 



