

brown with pale inner margins to the quills ; under wing-coverts white ; bill black ; irides and legs 

 dark brown. Total length 6 - l inches, culmen 08, wing 2 - 15, tail 33, tarsus 06. 



Adult Female. Upper parts olive-green with the centres of the feathers of the crown browner; a broad, very 

 pale yellow band across the lower back ; wings dark brown, with the least and median series of coverts 

 olive, and the other feathers broadly margined with olive-yellow ; tail dark brown, the feathers broadly 

 edged with olive-yellow, and with whitish ends to some of the outer ones ; underparts pale olive-yellow, 

 fading into yellowish white on the sides of the breast, and into pure white on the axillaries; under 

 surface of the wings brown with the inner margins of the quills and the coverts white, the latter tinted 

 with yellow ; bill dark brown, paler towards the base of the lower mandible ; irides and legs dark brown. 

 Total length 3'8 inches, culmen 0"75, wing 1'8, tail 1*3, tai'sus - 55. 



Hab. Himalaya Mountains from Mussoorie eastward through Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhootan, into Assam, 

 and southward to the Khasia hills. 



JE. saturata may be at once distinguished by the male having the back of the neck metallic 

 blue like the crown, and the entire chest black. The female of this species, as well as that of 

 JE. sanguinipectus, differs from the other known Sun-birds in having a pale yellowish band across 

 the lower back. 



This species inhabits North-eastern India, and is very plentiful in the South-eastern Himalayas, 

 Nepal, Sikkim, and also in Assam. It frequents the mountainous districts, usually at elevations of 

 from 3000 to 5000 feet above the sea-level ; and it has even been met with by Captain Elwes near 

 Tongloo, in Sikkim, at an elevation of 9000 feet. But, as Mr. Gould says, it " appears to prefer 

 regions of an equable temperature ; for it neither ascends to the bleak elevations of the ranges, 

 nor descends to the heated forests of the Terai, which skirt the vast chain of the Himalayas." 



According to the notes sent to me by Messrs. Hume and Davison " this species is probably 

 scarcely less common in Sikkim than JE. nipalensis. Westward it occurs throughout Nepal, 

 also, though sparingly, in Kumaon and British Gurwal, and as a rare straggler in Native Gurwal 

 and the neighbourhood of Mussoorie. It never, to the best of our belief, occurs westward of the 

 valley of the Jumna. Eastward it is common in Bhootan, and extends, as far as we know, into 

 Assam ; but its eastern limits have yet to be defined. It is common about Shillong ; but we have 

 not yet obtained it south of the Khasia hills." 



Although it is a common and well-marked species, very little has been recorded of its habits. 

 Mr. Hume (Nests & Eggs Ind. B. p. 147) writes: — "According to Mr. Hodgson's notes and 

 drawings it builds a beautiful pear-shaped hanging nest, about 6*5 inches in length by 3 in 

 breadth at the broadest part. The nest is hung at the end of a slender thorny twig, and is 

 composed of moss, bound together with little strips of bark and vegetable fibre, and is lined 

 with the soft down or pappus of some asteraceous plant. The entrance is almost immediately 

 below the point of suspension, and is secured by an awning, which projects about an inch, and 

 hides more than half the entrance-hole. They begin to lay, it appears, in April, two or three 

 being the number of the eggs, which, however, are neither described nor figured. Like the rest 

 of this genus it breeds only once in the year." 



The specimens which I have here figured and described came from Darjeeling. The female 

 is in Mr. Hume's collection. 



