Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/81

Rh their nectar. Sometimes it hovers in front of them, like a hawkmoth, exploring their recesses with its long, tubular tongue; oftener it clings with its minute? black feet, throwing its lithe body into all manner of acrobatic attitudes, while it thrusts its slender, curved bill into each tube in turn. And "between whiles" it skips about, slapping its sides with its tiny wings, spreading its tail like a fan, and ringing out its cheery refrain, ching-ching, chikee, chikee, chikee, as if it could not contain all the happiness that rilled its little frame. Suddenly it darts off to another tree, followed by its faithful mate, both traversing the air in a succession of bounds and sportive spirals. I am glad that Sunbirds are never caged, but cannot help wondering why. I once caught one with a butterfly net and kept it for two months, feeding it principally on syrup.

The Sunbird's nest is one of the most wonderful examples of bird architecture in the world. It is suspended from the very end of some down-hanging branch, often in an exposed situation by the wayside. The foundation is a pear-shaped bag made of various fibres, with an opening on one side, near the top. Over the opening there is a little porch to keep out sun and rain. Having finished this, the bird turns ragman and scours the country for scraps of rubbish. Fragments of bark, moss, lichens, withered petals of flowers, tags of white silk from the nests of red ants, the conglomerated pellets of chewed sawdust with which woodboring caterpillars conceal the entrances to their burrows, anything in short that looks old and shabby, is pounced upon and brought home and carefully stuck about the outside of the nest,