15d 



manica, taken by me on the 3rd March at Aberdeen, together with the female bird. The nest 

 was suspended from a creeper growing on a Gurjun or Wood-oil tree. It was built about five 

 feet from the ground.' 



" The nest is a typical ' Honey-sucker ' structure, suspended from a very slender leafy twig, 

 about 4 inches from its extreme point, these remaining 4 inches being allowed to hang down 

 alongside the nest. The body of the nest is egg-shaped, the longer diameter being vertical and 

 the end nearest the point of suspension being drawn out into a point. At the lower extremity 

 there is, as usual, a fringe of pendent ornaments, thin strips of bark of two kinds, brown and 

 silvery. The body of the nest is about 5 inches by 3, external diameter ; the point is drawn up 

 about an inch longer ; and the fringe hangs down about two inches below the bottom of the true 

 nest. About two inches below the point of suspension is a little portico, which projects about an 

 inch and immediately overhangs the oval aperture, which is an inch or rather more wide, and 

 nearly two inches high. The greatest interior diameter is two inches ; and it is only 1-5 inch deep 

 below the lower margin of the entrance. The nest is somewhat loosely woven with fine grass 

 and vegetable fibre ; and a few dead leaves, and numerous pieces of red fern-roots, white silver 

 paper-like bark, and other similar vegetable odds and ends are incorporated in the outer surface. 

 As usual, the margin of the lower half of the entrance is more firmly woven ; and the whole 

 interior below the aperture is densely felted with soft satiny vegetable down, mingled white 

 and brown. 



" The egg (for one was destroyed in transit) is a moderately elongated oval, a good deal 

 pointed towards one end. The shell is fine, but glossless. The ground-colour appears to be 

 slightly pinkish white, everywhere clouded and mottled with a faint wash of pinkish or purplish 

 brown. Besides this a few dark brown, in some cases almost black, specks, mostly very minute, 

 are scattered here and there about the surface of the egg. Only one of the specks exceeds in 

 size a full stop, as here printed • The clouding already alluded to seems to have a faint tendency 

 to form a zone about the large end. Some of the dark spots are surrounded by a nimbus, as if 

 the colour had run. The egg measures 067 by - 48." 



