birds, quoting the descriptions of those modern naturalists who have personally observed them. Their appearance, remarks Professor Alfred Newton, is entirely unlike that of any other bird: "One is admiring some brilliant and beautiful flower, when between the blossom and one's eye suddenly appears a small dark object, suspended as it were between four short black threads meeting each other in a cross. For an instant it shows in front of the flower; again another instant, and emitting a momentary flash of emerald and sapphire light, it is vanishing, lessening in the distance, as it shoots away, to a speck that the eye cannot take note of." Audubon observes that the Ruby humming-birds pass through the air in long undulations, but the smallness of their size precludes the possibility of following them with the eye farther than fifty or sixty yards, without great difficulty. A person standing in a garden by the side of a common althæa in bloom, will hear the humming of their wings and see the little birds themselves within a few feet of him one moment, while the next they will be out of sight and hearing. Mr. Gould, who visited North America in order to see living humming-birds while preparing his great work on the family, remarks that the action of the wings reminded him of a piece of machinery acted upon by a powerful spring. When poised before a flower, the motion is so rapid that a hazy semicircle of indistinctness on each side of the bird is all that is perceptible. Although many short intermissions of rest are taken, the bird be said to live in the air-an element in which it performs every kind of evolution with the utmost ease, frequently rising perpendicularly, flying backward, pirouetting or dancing off, as it were, from place to place, or from one part of a tree to another, sometimes descending, at others ascending. It often mounts up above the towering trees, and then shoots off like a little meteor at a right angle. At other times it gently buzzes away among the little flowers near the ground; at one moment it is poised over a diminutive weed, at the next it is seen at a distance of forty yards, whither it has vanished with the quickness of thought. may The Rufous Flame - bearer, an exquisite species found on the west coast of North America, is thus described by Mr. Nuttall: "When engaged in collecting its accustomed 66 IV sweets, in all the energy of life, it seemed like a breathing gem, a magic carbuncle of flaming fire, stretching out its glorious ruff as if to emulate the sun itself in splendour." The Sappho Comet, whose long forked tail barred with crimson and black renders it one of the most imposing of humming-birds, is abundant in many parts of the Andes; and Mr. Bonelli tells us that the difficulty of shooting them is very great from the extraordinary turns and evolutions they make when on the wing; at one instant darting headlong into a flower, at the next describing a circle in the air with such rapidity that the eye, unable to follow the movement, loses sight of the bird until it again. returns to the flower which at first attracted its attention. Vervain humming-bird of Jamaica, Mr. Gosse writes: Of the little have sometimes watched with much delight the evolutions of this little species at the Moringa-tree.1 present, he pursues the round of the blossoms soberly enough. When only one is But if two are at the tree, one will fly off, and suspend himself in the air a few yards distant; the other presently starts off to him, and then, without touching each other, they mount upwards with strong rushing wings, perhaps for five hundred feet. They then separate, and each starts diagonally towards the ground like a ball from a rifle, and, wheeling round, comes up to the blossoms again as if it had not moved away at all. The figure of the smaller humming-birds on the wing, their rapidity, their wavering course, and their whole manner of flight, are entirely those of an insect.” remarks that on the Amazons, during the cooler hours of the Mr. Bates morning and from four to six in the afternoon, hummingbirds are to be seen whirring about the trees by scores; their motions being unlike those of any other birds. They dart to and fro so swiftly that the eye can scarcely follow them, and when they stop before a flower it is only for a few moments. They poise themselves in an unsteady manner, their wings moving with inconceivable rapidity, probe the flower, and then shoot off to another part of the tree. proceed in that methodical manner which bees follow, taking They do not 1 Sometimes called the horse-radish tree. It is the Moringa pterygosperma, a native of the East Indies, but commonly cultivated in Jamaica. yellow flowers. It has the flowers seriatim, but skip about from one part of the tree to another in the most capricious way. Mr. Belt remarks on the excessive rapidity of the flight of the humming-bird giving it a sense of security from danger, so that it will approach a person nearer than any other bird, often hovering within two or three yards (or even one or two feet) of one's face. He watched them bathing in a small pool in the forest, hovering over the water, turning from side to side by quick jerks of the tail; now showing a throat of gleaming emerald, now shoulders of glistening amethyst; then darting beneath the water, and rising instantly, throw off a shower of spray from its quivering wings, and again fly up to an overhanging bough and commence to preen its feathers. All hummingbirds bathe on the wing, and generally take three or four dips, hovering between times about three or four inches above the surface. Mr. Belt also remarks on the immense numbers of humming - birds in the forests, and the great difficulty of seeing them; and his conclusion is, that in the part of Nicaragua where he was living they equalled in number all the rest of the birds together, if they did not greatly exceed them. The extreme pugnacity of humming-birds has been noticed. by all observers. Mr. Gosse describes two meeting and chasing each other through the labyrinths of twigs and flowers till, an opportunity occurring, the one would dart with seeming fury upon the other, and then, with a loud rustling of their wings, they would twirl together, round and round, till they nearly came to the earth. Then they parted, and after a time another tussle took place. Two of the same species can hardly meet without an encounter, while in many cases distinct species attack each other with equal fury. Mr. Salvin describes the splendid Eugenes fulgens attacking two other species with as much ferocity as its own fellows. One will knock another off its perch, and the two will go fighting and screaming away at a pace hardly to be followed by the eye. Audubon says they attack any other birds that approach them, and think nothing of assaulting tyrant-shrikes and even birds of prey that come too near their home. IV Display of Ornaments by the Male It is a well-known fact that when male birds possess any unusual ornaments, they take such positions or perform such evolutions as to exhibit them to the best advantage while endeavouring to attract or charm the females, or in rivalry with other males. It is therefore probable that the wonderfully varied decorations of humming-birds, whether burnished breast-shields, resplendent tail, crested head, or glittering back, are thus exhibited; but almost the only actual observation of this kind is that of Mr. Belt, who describes how two males of the Florisuga mellivora displayed their ornaments before a female bird. One would shoot up like a rocket, then, suddenly expanding the snow-white tail like an inverted parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round gradually to show off both back and front. white tail covered more space than all the rest of the bird, The expanded and was evidently the grand feature of the performance. Whilst one was descending the other would shoot up and come slowly down expanded.1 Food The food of humming-birds has been a matter of much controversy. All the early writers, down to Buffon, believed that they lived solely on the nectar of flowers; but since that time every close observer of their habits maintains that they feed largely, and in some cases wholly, on insects. observed them on the La Plata in winter, taking insects out Azara of the webs of spiders at a time and place where there were no flowers. Bullock, in Mexico, declares that he saw them catch small butterflies, and that he found many kinds of insects in their stomachs. Waterton made a similar statement. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of specimens have since been dissected by collecting naturalists, and in almost every instance their stomachs have been found full of insects -sometimes, but not generally, mixed with a proportion of honey. Many of them in fact may be seen catching gnats and other small insects just like fly-catchers, sitting on a dead twig over water, darting off for a time in the air, and then 1 The Naturalist in Nicaragua, p. 112. returning to the twig. Others come out just at dusk, and remain on the wing, now stationary, now darting about with the greatest rapidity, imitating in a limited space the evolutions of the goatsuckers, and evidently for the same end and purpose. Mr. Gosse also remarks: "All the hummingbirds have more or less the habit, when in flight, of pausing in the air and throwing the body and tail into rapid and odd contortions. This is most observable in the Polytmus, from the effect that such motions have on the long feathers of the tail. That the object of these quick turns is the capture of insects, I am sure, having watched one thus engaged pretty close to me. I observed it carefully, and distinctly saw the minute flies in the air which it pursued and caught, and heard repeatedly the snapping of the beak. My presence scarcely disturbed it, if at all." There is also an extensive group of small brown hummingbirds, forming the sub-family Phaethornithine, which rarely or never visit flowers, but frequent the shady recesses of the forest, where they hunt for minute insects. They dart about among the foliage, and visit in rapid succession every leaf upon a branch, balancing themselves vertically in the air, passing their beaks closely over the under-surface of each leaf, and thus capturing, no doubt, any small insects that may lurk there. While doing this, the two long feathers of the tail have a vibrating motion, serving apparently as a rudder to assist them in performing the delicate operation. Others search up and down stems and dead sticks in the same manner, every now and then picking off something, exactly as a bush-shrike or a tree-creeper does, with the difference that the humming-bird is constantly on the wing; while the remarkable sickle-bill is said to probe the scale-covered stems of palms and tree-ferns to obtain its insect food. It is a well-known fact that although humming-birds are easily tamed, they cannot be preserved long in captivity, even in their own country, when fed only on syrup. Audubon states that when thus fed they only live a month or two and die apparently starved; while if kept in a room whose open. windows are covered with a fine net, so as to allow small insects to enter, they have been kept for a whole year without any ill effects. Another writer, Mr. Webber, captured and Y |