with red, and with pale ends ; entire underparts pale yellowish olive. Total length 4-2 inches, culmen 

 - 75, wing 2, tail 1*6, tarsus 055. 



Young Male. Forehead, crown, and nape olive-brown, with some of the feathers of the crown edged with 

 red ; back of the neck, upper back, and the scapulars blood-red, with the base of the feathers olive- 

 yellow, which colour shows through to a certain extent ; lower back olive ; upper tail-coverts olive- 

 shaded yellow ; wings and tail dark brown, with all the feathers broadly edged with blood-red ; the 

 edges of the wing-coverts partially mottled with olive-yellow ; the tail-feathers, with the exception of 

 the two centre ones, having broad pale ends; the entire underparts as well as the cheeks pale yellowish 

 olive; a few of the feathers on the front of the breast mottled with red. Total length 3" 7 inches, 

 culmen 065, wing T8, tail 1*5, tarsus 0'55. 



Male in moult. Similar in plumage to the adult male, but with all the tail-feathers broadly edged with 

 blood-red, excepting the two centre ones, which are edged with violet-shaded steel-blue, while on the 

 centre of the breast there is a patch of pale yellowish olive. 



Hab. Celebes. 



The Yellow-backed Sun-bird of the island of Celebes belongs to the section of JEthopyga in 

 which the metallic portions of the crown and the upper tail-coverts are steel-blue, and in which 

 the throat is red margined by a steel-blue moustachial streak. It occupies an intermediate 

 position between jE. siparaja and JE. magnified as regards its colouring and size, as it does in its 

 geographical distribution. From both of these birds it may be distinguished by the yellow 

 streaks on the throat, whence it has derived its name, as well as by the dusky olive colour of its 

 abdomen. 



The first mention we find of this bird is in a letter by Mr. "Wallace (Ibis, 1860, p. 140), 

 where he writes : — " I have just returned from a three-months' exploration of Menado and the 

 surrounding district of Minahassa, forming the north-eastern extremity of the Celebes. I first 

 visited the most elevated districts, taking up my residence in a village at an elevation of 

 3500 feet. I then removed to a forest district beyond the lake of Tondano, at an elevation of 

 1500 feet. Of the few species I obtained, however, several were new to me; one was a most 

 lovely Cinnyris with scarlet breast and yellow-striped throat (I hope a new species)." 



This was probably the identical specimen which five years later he made the type of his 

 Nectarinia flavostriata, and is the one in the British Museum from which I have described the 

 adult male. My descriptions of the adult female and of the male in moult are also taken from 

 Mr. Wallace's specimens in our national collection, while that of the young male is from Count 

 Salvadori's type specimen of yEthopyga beccarii. 



Count Salvadori (I. c.) mentions that Signor Beccari collected two adult males at Kandari, 

 on the western coast, in June 1874, as well as the type of his jE. beccarii, which he recognizes 

 as a young bird ; but at the time he wrote, naturalists were not apparently aware that some, 

 though not all, of this group of JEtlxopygoz have these red shades in the plumage of the females 

 and young males, and apparently also in adult males during their moult. This, however, is 

 found to be the case in this species as well as in JE. magnifica from the Philippines, but is not 

 met with in the females and young males of the nearly allied JE. siparaja. 



Dr. Briiggemann first drew my attention to the fact that 2E. beccarii belongs to this species ; 



