1898.] F. Finn— Plumage of Honey sucker. 65 



started for England, in the first week in August, it was in the non- 

 breeding dress, brown above and yellow below, with the median purple 

 streak, but still retaining the orange axillary tufts. 



This specimen, unfortunately, only survived its advent at the 

 Zoological Gardens for about a fortnight* and I do not know whether 

 it was preserved ; if it w 7 as, it was probably put in spirit, as the moult 

 had never been properly completed, and so the plumage was in bad 

 order. It had, however, lived long enough to show that the change 

 above referred to does really take place ; for that captivity could have 

 so affected the bird as to change the colour of the actually growing 

 feathers, I am not inclined to admit, and I therefore conclude that the 

 accounts which give this bird a change of plumage are quite correct. 



While on this subject, it seemed to me that I might draw the atten- 

 tion of ornithologists to a similar change, apparently hitherto unrecord- 

 ed, in a bird which, though not believed to be allied to our Sunbirds, 

 and inhabiting the New World, nevertheless in form and habits presents 

 at least an analogical resemblance to these. I allude to the Yellow- 

 winged Blue Sugar-bird (Goereba cyanea) of which several specimens 

 have been exhibited in the London Zoological Society's Gardens. 



During my previous acquaintance with the species there, I had 

 been struck by the change of plumage that the male appeared to under- 

 go, and when in England last September, I found the Society's single 

 specimen, a male which had been acquired as long ago as J 890, actually 

 passing into the full violet plumage from the undress stage, which had 

 been olive-green above, and yellowish below, much resembling the 

 coloration of the female. The tail was black, and the wings yellow and 

 black, and the legs pink-red, as in the male in full plumage. In fact, 



# I ascribe my small measure of success with living Sunbirds to the fact that 



I fed them too much on "slops" sweetened milk or milk-sop. In addition to some 



such food given at first it would, I think, be well to supply crumbled yolk of hard- 

 boiled egg mixed with powdered sugar, and to keep them as much on this as possi- 

 ble, with fruit also. None of the Arachnecthra zeylonica I had survived the voyage 

 but one, and this died in the train en route from Plymouth to London. I saw this 

 bird bullying the A. asiatica one occasion at least, and I had previously noticed that 

 the latter bird appeared somewhat to fear its companions. When all were together 

 in a big cage in Calcutta it kept almost entirely to one twig in the branch put in this 

 cage, and was in general less active in its movements than A. zeylonica, though it 

 seemed less sensitive to cold on the voyage. None of the male A. zeylonica, some 

 of which were moulting, showed any sign of changing their bright plumage for 

 a duller one, as suggested by Captain Shelley in his account of the species in the 

 Monograph above quoted. Neither did they molest each other, whilo I remember 

 having had to separate two male specimens of A. asiatica which I had previously 

 kept, beoause one was getting so badly bullied by the other. 



F. F. 



J. ii. 9 



