Hd 



Adult Female. Forehead, crown, and nape brownish ash-colour; back and scapulars yellowish olive; wings 

 dark brown, with the least and median series of coverts and the edges of the other feathers yellowish 

 olive; tail black, the edges of the feathers with a metallic gloss, their ends white, broadest towards the 

 outer feathers ; uuderparts as well as the cheeks and ear-coverts white, strongly shaded with sulphur- 

 yellow down the centre of the breast ; undersurface of the wings brown, with the inner margins of the 

 quills and the coverts white, the latter shaded with sulphur-yellow at the edges of the wings. Total 

 length 4-6 inches, culmen 0-65, wing 2*1, tail 1'75, tarsus 0'55. 



Male in moult. Forehead, crown, and back of the neck deep ashy brown with a few metallic green feathers ; 

 mantle black ; least and median series of wing-coverts, scapulars, lower half of the back, and upper tail- 

 coverts metallic green, glossed with lilac, and mottled with ashy brown; greater wing-coverts black; 

 quills brownish black with yellowish olive margins ; tail black with white ends to all but the centre 

 feathers ; chin and throat ashy white, mottled with copper-coloured feathers down the middle ; centre 

 of the breast white ; flanks and under tail-coverts grey ; on the sides of the chest two large patches of 

 black and metallic lilac; pectoral tufts bright yellow; thighs brownish black. Total length 4 - 75 inches, 

 culmen 08, wing 225, tail 17, tarsus 0'6. 



II us. Southern Tenasserim and the Malay peninsula, Penang, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Labuan, and Celebes. 



I retain this species in the genus Clialcostetha, of which it is at present the only representative. 

 The form of its tail is very similar to that of many of the jEthoijygce ; but in its general characters 

 it is more closely allied to Cinmjris. In its colouring it somewhat resembles the members of the 

 " Hermotinia" group; and like them it has the frontal feathers extending onto the membrane 

 which covers the nostrils; but it differs from all these last-named Sun-birds by the large bright 

 yellow pectoral tufts, by the brilliant copper-colour of the throat, which is entirely surrounded by 

 a band of metallic lilac, and by the chest being also adorned with that latter colour. 



The present species has a somewhat wide range. The locality Siam I have, however, 

 omitted, as it is only entered as doubtful by the Marquis of Tweeddale (Ibis, 1870, p. 44), on 

 the authority of a specimen in the British Museum, which I myself have failed to find, and 

 think it possible that it has been discovered to be an error in locality which has since been 

 corrected, though Mr. Sharpe informs me that he docs not remember any such alteration being 

 made since his appointment. 



Messrs. Hume and Davison write to me : — " This species swarms in the cocoa-nut plantations 

 at Singapore; any number were procurable there in August, September, and October; but it 

 was observed nowhere else in the Malay peninsula, except at Copah (Junk Ceylon), where 

 several were seen haunting the mangrove swamps on the 4th of December, the mangrove being 

 then in flower. Curiously enough, we searched in vain for this species day after day in the 

 extensive cocoa-nut plantations of Malacca and its neighbourhood, and other localities intervening 

 between Copah and Singapore. 



" Further north, again, on the 18th of November, a pair of this species was seen, and the 

 female shot, as usual feeding on the cocoa-nut flowers, at the north-w r estern corner of the island 

 of Patoe, immediately opposite to Mergui. We must therefore include Southern Tenasserim in 

 its range. 



"At Singapore it was, excluding Anthreptes malaccensis, the most common Sun-bird. All 



