290 Wernerian Natural History Society. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



U l.RXKIUAN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



April 4. — Professor Jameson, President, in the Chair. 



Professor Traill made a communication to the Society on the na- 

 ture of the food of the genus Trochilus, or Humming-bird, accom- 

 panied with a dissection. The information communicated on this oc- 

 casion was not to he considered in the light of a new discovery, as 

 the Professor intimated he had made the observations many years 

 ago. It was a favourite notion, he remarked, with Buffon and the 

 older writers on natural history, that the food of these birds was 

 BCarcely less sethereal than their forms, and that they partook of no- 

 thing more substantial than the nectar of flowers. This opinion 

 was first contradicted by Wilson, who, speaking of the birds in a 

 state of confinement, had remarked, that although they did not re- 

 fuse to partake of sugar and water, yet they frequently devoured in- 

 sects. Dr. T. stated that he had opened the stomachs of a great 

 number of these tiny creatures, and did not remember that he ever 

 failed in finding insects, often many, and these of large size when com- 

 pared to the size of the captor. They were usually w'inged insects ; 

 and the resort of the birds to honeyed flowers was naturally ex- 

 plained by the fact that to these many insects resorted for their 

 favourite food. In the dissected specimen which the Doctor exhi- 

 bited, the stomach had been opened, and there still remained in situ 

 three insects of very considerable dimensions. The stomach was re- 

 markably muscular, as was also the heart ; and in fact the whole 

 muscular system was exceedingly developed. This remark applied 

 particularly to the muscles of the wing, — to its principal muscle, the 

 pectoralis externus, w T hich brings the wing down to the body, and 

 scarcely less to the pectoralis minor, which elevates the member. The 

 Doctor stated that he had removed the whole muscular apparatus 

 from the body, and weighed it, and then weighed the rest of the 

 frame, had repeated this observation upon a variety of other birds, 

 and found that in none was the relative development apparently so 

 great. 



Dr. Traill added some further observations upon the anatomy of 

 the tongue and the os hyoides. The long and extensile tongue is 

 extensively bifid in a horizontal direction, one of the forked portions 

 lying above and over the other. Both of them are tubular, an ob- 

 servation based upon his personal observation, and in contradiction 

 to the denial of some respectable naturalists, whose error he con- 



