482 BIRDS OF BRITISH GUIANA. 



Eons. ''Two in number: black or purple-ldack, with faint 

 traces of pale lavender ground-colour,, distinctly revealed at tlie 

 small end, etc." (Beehe). 



Ranae in British Gniana. ]\Iount Roraima. Ituribisi liiver, 

 Supenaam River, Bartica, Bonasika Kiver, Maukauria Iiiver, 

 ]\Iazaruni River, Aarawai River, Great Falls Demerara River 

 {McConnell collection) ; Mount Roraima, Merume Mountains, 

 Kamakusa, Bartica (Wldtehf)', Hoorie Creok, Aremu [Beehe). 



E.rtralimital Range. Surinam (Penard), Cayenne (Linne), 

 Trinidad, Tobago, Colombia. North-east Brazil, Central America 

 to Mexico and Cuba. 



Habits. According to Scliomburgk (Reis. Guian. iii. p. C75) 

 this species is distributed throughout British Guiana. It roams 

 alx)ut in small flocks in the small plantations and on the tojts of 

 trees in the neighbourhood of rivers. Schomburgk stiites that its 

 nidification was unknown to him. 



The following notes have been copied from Beebe (Tropical Wild 

 Life in British Guiana, p. 241 j : — " This graceful creeper fulfils all 

 the ideals of one's thoughts of tropical birds. We know it chiefly 

 as an inhabitant of the tree-tops, and seen against the bright 

 sky it showed only as a slender, thin-billed, little black hivd. But 

 when we saw it against foliage, its plumage blazed out in all its 

 brilliance. With a body scarcely four inches long it glowed a 

 brilliant purple-blue, with feet of scarlet, crown of pale blue, 

 back and wings of blackest jet, the latter fjilashed within by 

 pigment of brightest gold. 



" The nest was a fairy network suspended over the water, as 

 thin and evanescent as the shadow of an oriole's purse, and the 

 eggs were the strangest of all eggs in the world — they were 

 black. The home of the Honey-Creepers was delicately caught iu 

 the base of a great heart-leaf of a water-arum, the mucka-mucka, 

 beloved of hoatzins, and it swung in every breath of air barely 

 four feet above the surface of the river's ed;:e. It was exceed- 

 ingly thin-walled, every detail of the eggs and the setting bird 

 being {dainly visible. And yet it was most durable and quite 

 impossible to tear or even appreciably alter in shape, for it was 

 composed of fine, but very strong thread-like rootlets, all of a 

 uniform dark brown or black colour. The small round opening 

 was at the top, obliquely facing one side. The nest itself was 



