

Adult Female. Similar in plumage to the male. 



Hab. Nepal, Sikkim, Assam, Khasia hills, Tipperah, Chittagong, Arracan, southward to Pahpoon. 



This large dull-coloured Sun-bird is readily recognized by the hroad black shaft-stripes to the 

 feathers of the back and breast. It is closely allied to A. aurata, which, however, may be 

 distinguished by the shaft-stripes being much narrower and less distinct. 



Messrs. Hume and Davison write to me : — " The larger Indian Spider-hunter is extremely 

 common in Sikkim and part of Nepal, in the hills and valleys, from an elevation of about two to 

 five thousand feet according to the season, and descending at times in the winter even to a lower 

 elevation, being found as a straggler in the Doars and the Terai in the cold weather. 



" We are not aware that it is ever found further west than Nepal ; but if it does occur at all 

 in Kumaon it can only be as a straggler. Eastward in the western portions of Assam (always, be 

 it understood, in hilly tracts) it appears to be common ; but Assam has as yet been so imperfectly 

 explored that we are unable to say how far eastward it extends. Southward it is found in the 

 Khasia hills, Hill Tipperah, and the hilly portions of Chittagong and Arracan. It does not 

 occur, so far as we yet know, in the dry northern portions of Pegu ; but east of the Sittang it is 

 met with in the northern portions of the Tenasserim Province as far south as Pahpoon. Further 

 south than this we have never procured it. 



" Colonel Tickell is said to have obtained it twice in Tenasserim ; but this was probably in 

 the hills dividing this province from Siam ; and Horsfield (Cat. B. Mus. E.l. Co. p. 727) mentions 

 a specimen from Heifer's collection ; but we have collected vigorously for three years in most 

 parts of Tenesserim and have never met with a specimen south of Pahpoon, although by a 

 misprint in our first list (Str. F. ii. p. 473) we are made to record a specimen from Ye." 



" There is little to be said of the habits of the Araclinotherce, which are all very similar to 

 those of other Sun-birds, frequenting large flowering trees, like the silk-cotton-tree (Bombax, 

 several species), and feeding chiefly on nectar, though unquestionably also consuming insects, the 

 remains of which are continually found in their stomachs. 



" If the trivial name Spider-hunter is meant to indicate that they are chiefly insectivorous, 

 we doubt its correctness, as we believe that their chief staple of food is nectar. 



"They have a feeble chirruping note, uttered generally while the bird is feeding, but occa- 

 sionally also as they fly from tree to tree. 



" Their flight is swift and direct, with rapid beats of the wings ; but they seldom, if ever, 

 appear to sustain it for any great distance. 



" They breed in May, at any rate in Sikkim, and build an excessively massive, deep, cup- 

 shaped nest, composed of vegetable fibre densely felted together, externally intermingled with 

 portions of fine skeleton leaves, and internally lined with soft grass. 



"On this subject our friend Mr. Gammie writes: — 'Common as this species is in the 

 Chinch ona Preserves, I have as yet taken but two of its nests. As they were precisely alike, 

 both in structure and position, and as, moreover, I learn on good authority that the nests are 

 always similar to those I took, I can only conclude that Jerdon had neither seen one in situ nor 

 even a perfect specimen, or he never would have described it as " a very large but loose structure 

 of grass and other fibrous materials, with a hole at one side near the top." In the first place, the 



