470 Birds of Celebes: Nectariniidae. 



bronze feathers; feathers of male maturity in tail, inner quills and scaijulars. (Siao, 

 Nr. 8511.) 



Two others are in a cm-ious pied plumage: head, neck, throat and mantle 

 generally like the adult female, but varied on the mantle with adult male feathers; 

 the remaining parts generally as in the adult male, so that the head end or half of 

 the bu-d is like the mother, the lower end or half like the father, the greenish yellow 

 throat and jugulimi contrasting remarkably with the black of the breast and remaining 

 under-parts (Great Sangi, Meyer — Nr. 6322; Nat. Coll., 16. VTI. 9:i — C 12712). 



Measurements (25 ad. cTcf — Blasius c 2). Extremes of wing 57— 62 mm; tail 40.5—46; 

 culmen 15 — 17. Tarsus 15 ca. 



The female seems to be smaller than the adult male, as shown by three 

 measured by Prof. W. Blasius. That described above has wing 55 mm; tail 3.!; 

 culmen 16; tarsus 11.5 (Gt. Sangi). 



Eggs. "Dr. Platen, when in Great Sangi, collected a number of eggs of tliis bird, which 

 are deep coffee-brown and at the large end show a black-brown circlet, formed of 

 dissolved spots. On some eggs traces of black cross-streaks are perceptible. The 

 measurements are: 16 X 12 mm. The gloss is very strong." (Nehrkorn MS.) 



Nest? A number of nests sent to the Dresden Museum by our native collectors from Great 

 Sangi and Siao, bearing indifferently the native names of tliis species and of An- 

 threptes chhrigaster are of an inverted pear-shape, with the entrance in the upper 

 half covered by a small hood, externally a rough mass of bits of leaf, bark, rotten 

 wood, grasses, spiders' or caterpillars' excrementa, wool, the whole bound together 

 with spiders' web, hned with finer grasses and sometimes a few feathers. The nest 

 is suspended at the end of a twig of a broad-leaved plant or among fine parasitical twigs. 



Breeding season. A brooding female was killed by Dr. Platen on January 2S*'', 1887 

 (Bias, c 2). Thus we know that the bird breeds in the rainy season. 



Distribution. Sangi Islands — Siao (Meyer a 1, Nat. Coll. in Dresd. and Tring Mus.); 

 Great Sangi (Meyer a 1, Bruijn c 1, Platen c 2, Nat. Coll.); Tagulandang and 

 Gunong Api (Nat. Coll.). 



This species most nearly resembles H. talautensis of the Talaut Islands to 

 the north-east, a bird of rather larger size, with a throat of pansy-purple changing 

 to maroon-jjurple with a coppery gloss according to the light, but under no con- 

 ditions of light to coppery-bronze, as in H. saiigirensis . Its back and imder parts, 

 also, are not brownish, or purplish, black. Shelley xeraBx^is ihM. H. sangirensis 

 is the member of the Hermotimia group which, in virtue of the bronzy copper 

 colour of its throat, most nearly approaches Chalcostetha insignis, and the occa- 

 sional presence of yellow pectoral tufts in Siao' birds (see supra) leads very 

 interesting confirmation to this view. 



h * 187. HERMOTIMIA TALAUTENSIS M.&Wg. 



Talaut Black Sun-bird. 

 Plate XXVII. 



Hermotimia talautensis (1) M. & Wg., J. f. 0. 1894, 244; (2) iid., Abh. Mus. Dresd. 1895, 



Nr. 9, p. 5. 

 "Taramisi bamburuwanan" (= (f ad.), Nat. Coll. 



