470 
Birds of Celebes: Nectariniidae. 
bronze feathers; feathers of male matiu-ity in tail, inner quills and scapulars. (Siao, 
Nr. 8511.) 
Two others are in a curious pied plumage: head, neck, throat and mantle 
generally like the adult female, hut varied on the mantle with adult male feathers; 
the remaining parts generally as in the adult male, so that the head end or half of 
the bird is hke the mother, the lower end or half like the father, the greenish yellow 
throat and jugulum contrasting remarkably with the black of the breast and remaining 
under-parts (Great Sangi, Meyer — Nr. 6322; Nat. Coll., 16. YTT. 93 — 0 12712). 
Measurements (25 ad. cfrf — Blasius c 2). Extremes of wing 57 — 62 mm; tail 40.5—46; 
culmen 15 — 17. Tarsus J5 ca. 
The female seems to be smaller than the adult male, as shown by three 
measured by Prof. W. Blasius. That described above has wing 55 mm; tail 33; 
culmen 16; tarsus 1-1.5 (Gt. Sangi). 
Eggs. “Dr. Platen, Avhen in Great Sangi, collected a number of eggs of tliis bird, Avhich 
are deep coffee-brown and at the large end show a black-brown circlet, formed of 
dissolved spots. On some eggs traces of black cross-streaks are perceptible. The 
measurements are: 16 X 12 mm. The glo.ss is very strong.” (Nehrkorn MS.) 
Nest? A number of nests sent to the Dresden Museum by our native collectors from Great 
Sangi and Siao, bearing indifferently the native names of this species and of An- 
threptes chlm-igmiter are of an inverted pear-sbape, with the entrance in the upper 
half covered by a small hood, externally a rough mass of bits of leaf, bai’k, rotten 
wood, grasses, spiders’ or caterpillars’ excrenienta, wool, the whole bound together 
with spiders’ web, lined with finer grasses and sometimes a few feathers. The nest 
is suspended at the end of a twig of a broad-leaved plant or among fine parasitical twigs. 
Breeding season. A brooding female was killed by Dr. Platen on January 28*-*’, 1887 
(Bias, c 2). Thus we know that the bird breeds in the rainy season. 
Distribution. Sangi Islands — Siao (Meyer a 1, Nat. Coll, in Dresd. and Tring Mus.); 
Great Sangi (Meyer a 1, Bruijn cl, Platen c 2, Nat. Coll.); Tagulandang and 
Gunong Api (Nat. Coll.). 
This species most nearly resembles H. talautensis of the Talaut Islands to 
the north-east, a bird of rather larger size, wdth a throat of pansy-purple changing 
to maroon-purjole with a coppery gloss according to the light, hut under no con- 
ditions of light to coppery-bronze, as in H. sajigirensis. Its back and under parts, 
also, are not brownish, or purplish, black. Shelley reraserks that H. sangirensis 
is the member of the Hermotimia group which, in virtue of the bronzy copper 
colour of its throat, most nearly approaches Chalcostetha insignis, and the occa- 
sional presence of yellow pectoral tufts in Siao' birds (see supra) leads very 
interesting confirmation to this view. 
* 187. HERMOTIMIA TALAUTENSIS M.&Wg. 
Talaut Black Sun-bird. 
Plate XXVII. 
Hermotimia talautensis (1) M. & Wg., J. f. 0. 1894, 244; (2) iid., Abh. Mus. Dresd. 1895, 
Nr. 9, p. 5. 
“Taramisi bamburuwanan” (= ad.), Nat. Coll. 
