SUNBIEDS 129 



extent from the other species, and the eggs are cream-coloured, 

 streaked and blotched with purple-brown and slate-grey. 



It is not uncommon around Grahamstown, Cape Colony, 

 and in Johannesburg, Transvaal. 



The Mouse-coloured Sunbird {C. verreauxi) is, as its name 

 implies, of an ashy-brown colour below with pectoral tufts 

 of bright red. Its range is rather limited, being so far only 

 recorded from Eastern Cape Colony, Natal and Zululand. 



In Albany it was formerly fairly common, but of late 

 years has become somewhat scarce. We were lucky enough 

 to take two nests on January 5, 1907, in a thickly wooded 

 kloof off Featherstone Valley, near Grahamstown. These 

 were both untidy-looking pendent structures of grass, 

 decorated all over with dead leaves stuck on with cobwebs 

 and lined with vegetable down and feathers. It is almost 

 invariably hung from a branch close to a krantz (cliff). The 

 eggs are so thickly mottled and blotched with chocolate- 

 and purplish-brown as to appear at first sight of a general 

 rich brown colour ; it is the prettiest of all the Sunbird eggs. 



The Orange-breasted Sunbird {Anthobaphes violacea) is 

 metallic-purple on the chest and has the rest of the under 

 parts of an orange-yellow, the breast being tinged with red. 

 It is confined to Cape Colony, ranging as far west as Albany. 

 It breeds in winter, buildiag an oval, dome-shaped nest in 

 a tuft of heath, and lays two eggs of a white ground, marked 

 with grey-brown. 



The last representative of the family is the tiny Collared 

 Sunbird {Anthreptes collaris), which is green above and 

 yellow below, the yellow being separated from the green 

 throat by a band of violet. 



We found them fairly common in the Albany kloofs 

 during January, 1907, and discovered several nests, which 



K 



