CREEPER. 215 



wing is lifted up; greater wing coverts and quills blackish, edged with 

 green ; tail bright black, edged outwardly with green-gold, but the 

 two middle feathers are two inches and a half longer than the others, 

 and green-gold on both edges ; legs black. 



The female said to have the head and upper parts greenish brown, 

 mixed with tine green ; rump green ; quills and tail black brown ; 

 beneath the body yellow, with a mixture of green on the breast ; 

 the tail is also said to be long as in the male, but the feathers exceed 

 little more than two inches, and are very narrow. I suspect this to 

 be a young male. 



Among the birds brought from Abyssinia, by Mr. Salt, is one of 

 these, met with at Mosambique ; about seven inches in length, and 

 answering in general markings ; but the colour a most brilliant grass 

 green, in some parts inclining to blue ; all the under parts, quite to 

 the vent, the same, equally brilliant, and not unaptly, as Levaillant 

 mentions, imitating the hue of the Malachite ; it has also the elon- 

 gated tail feathers, and the patch of yellow under the bend of the 

 wings. 



The female has the same plumage throughout the year, but never 

 gains the elongated middle feathers ; and in the winter, the male is 

 also destitute of them. 



This species is found at all seasons about the Cape of Good 

 Hope, particularly on the east coast, and in many of the cantons of 

 the interior, every where so abundant, that one person may kill fifty 

 or more in a day, for the birds are not shy ; very common about Cape 

 Town ; frequents kitchen gardens, for the sake of sucking the nectar 

 from various flowers of theProteas, great flowering Nettle, and others; 

 they make a hemispherical nest, composed of dry fibres mixed with 

 moss and down within, and lay four or five greenish eggs which 

 are hatched in eighteen days, and both sexes sit by turns. The male 

 has an agreeable warble or whistle, to be heard at some distance ; 

 called at the Cape, Groene Suyker Voogel, or Green Sugar Bird. 



