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As is usual with sunbirds, the cock is attired more gaily than the hen. He is a veritable feathered exquisite. Dame Nature has lavished on his diminutive body most of the hues to be found in her well-stocked paint-box. His forehead and crown are metallic green. His back is red, crimson on the shoulders.
Black bulbuls, like sunbirds, get well dusted with pollen while diving into flowers after nectar, and so probably act the part of insects as regards the cross-fertilisation of large flowers. In respect of nesting habits, black bulbuls conform more closely to the ways of their tribe than they do in other matters. The nesting season is early spring.
Now, I am fully persuaded that the nectar of flowers is an intoxicant to birds, and of course this will account, not only in part for the rowdiness of the black bulbuls, but for the pugnacity of those creatures, such as sunbirds, which habitually feed upon this stimulating diet.
It is to be found in most places along the west coast. Nor is it the only bulbul living on the hills. The justification for the name is that if a census were taken of the bird-folk who dwell in our hill stations, it would show that Otocompsa fuscicaudata outnumbered all the crows, mynas, sparrows, flycatchers, and sunbirds put together. It is the bird of the southern hills.
Mynas walked eagerly on the lawns looking for grasshoppers, glittering sunbirds hovered over the flowers, thrusting their slender bills into each nectar-laden blossom, bulbuls twittered among the mulberries and the koel made the shady banian tree resound with its melodious notes.
And as the men dipped their oars to row slowly up the winding stream, which often seemed to turn back upon itself, the Spaniard pointed now to tiny bee-like sunbirds with their dazzling metallic casques and gorgets the brilliant little creatures that take the place of the humming-birds of the New World.
The great city roared without; Orestes plotted, and Cyril counterplotted, and the fate of a continent hung or seemed to hang trembling in the balance; but the turmoil of it no more troubled those lazy Titans within, than did the roll and rattle of the carriage-wheels disturb the parakeets and sunbirds which peopled, under an awning of gilded wire, the inner court of Pelagia's house.
There were candelabra everywhere, liquids cooled with snow, cheeses big as millstones, chunks of fat in wooden bowls, and behind the tables, slaves with copper platters. On the platters were quarters of red beef, breams swimming in grease, and sunbirds with their plumage on. In the semicircular gallery musicians played, three notes, constantly repeated.
"Trying to catch one of those bright little sunbirds, I suppose," said Rodd. "No," said the doctor, who was watching the serpent through his glass. "I should say that one is after birds' nests." "Think of that!" cried Joe. "But he wouldn't blow the eggs, sir, would he, and make a string?"
I will only say here that some spiders use these peculiar glands to form light webs by whose aid, though wingless, they float balloon-wise through the air; that others employ them to line the sides of their underground tunnels, and to make the basis of their marvellously ingenious earthen trap-doors; that yet others have learnt how to adapt these same organs to a subaquatic existence, and to fill cocoons with air, like miniature diving bells; while others, again, have taught themselves to construct webs thick enough to catch and hold even creatures so superior to themselves in the scale of being as humming-birds and sunbirds.
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