StTNBIBDS 
Nect<iriniid(ie 
In their general appearance the sunbirds bear a strong 
resemblance to the humming-birds and it is not unusual to 
find that the two families are frequently confused by laymen. 
The humming-birds however are not even "perctiing- 
birds'^ (Passertformes) and are therefore quite unrelated to the 
sunbirds. They are placed by systematists in that miscel- 
laneous Order the Co racit formes. Hummmg-birds are only 
found in the New World and sunbirds only in the Old World. 
In the sunbirds the piumage is frequently very beautiful 
and metallic in character; but the sexes are usually quite 
distinctj only the males being brilliantly clad the females more 
often than not being arrayed in sober greens, greys and 
yellows. 
By means of the tongue which is very long and tubular, 
the birds as they flit from bush to bush like honey bees, extract 
nectar from the flowers. It is frequently asserted that the 
sunbirds cannot hover or remain poised over a flower as can 
the humming-birds but this is not strictly true for occasionally 
we have seen them hovering like a hawk-moth over a bloom: 
normally ihey cling to the stem of the flower they feed from, 
or to some other handy support. 
In their nesting habits they display features of very great 
interest some of which are noticed under the specific headings. 
The sunbirds are all of small size : the family is divided 
into two sub-families, the one including the true or typical 
sunbirds and the other the spider-hunters in which the plumage 
is duller, like that of the female sunbirds. Both sub- families 
are extremely w^ell represented in the Malay Peninsula, the 
<;unbirds by thirteen and the spider-hunters by seven species. 
A fair number of these, alt mentioned below, occur in Singapore 
but some are not common. 
