182 
L0R1CULUS JNDICUS. 
flowers afford it its favourite saccharine food. It is a most gluttonous little bird, constantly on the wing m 
active search for its food, darting with a very swift flight through the woods, uttering its sibilant little scieam, 
its bright plumage flashing in the rays of the tropical sun. When it reaches a tree which attracts its attention 
it instantly checks its headlong progress, and alighting on the top, actively climbs to the fruit which it has 
espied, or should the tree prove barren, after giving out its call-note for a short time, darts off, perhaps m the 
opposite direction from which it came. It is excessively fond of the “ toddy ” or juice which exists in the Kitool 
or sugar-palm ( Caryota urens), and feeds on it to such an extent that it becomes stupified and falls an easy 
captive to the natives, who cage it in large numbers lor sale at Point de Galle. 
While in a state of captivity they are fed on sugar-cane, of which they are very fond, but they do not 
live for any length of time should the supply of cane come to an end. It feeds so gluttonously on the 
beautiful fruit of the Jambu-tree that I have seen bird after bird shot out of one tree without their com- 
panions taking the slightest notice of the gun or the death of so many of their little flock*. When held up 
by the legs, after being shot, the juice of this fruit pours from their mouths and nostrils. The flowers of 
the cocoanut-tree come in for a large share of its patronage, as do also those of other trees, on the “ cups 
or calyces of which it subsists, biting them off in a pendent attitude. Layard writes that “ at Gillymally they 
were 'in such abundance that the flowering trees were literally alive with them ; they clung to the bright 
scarlet flowers head downwards, or scrambled from branch to branch, while the forest echoed with their 
bickerings. They bit off the leaves (which fell like scarlet snow upon the ground) to get at the calyx ; and when 
this dainty morsel was devoured they flew off to the banana-trees, down the broad leaves of which they slid 
and fastened upon the ripening clusters of fruit or the pendent heart-shaped flower.” 
When roosting at night they sleep hanging by their feet from the perch. 
The figure in the Plate facing my article on Palaornis calthropa is that of an adult bird, and that on the 
Plate of Xantholccma rubricapilla an immature or yearling individual. 
* I have observed the same of Trichoglossus pusillus in Australia, which it is sometimes impossible to drive from a 
tree laden with ripe cherries otherwise than by vigorously shaking the stems 
