Flügelfjivhung der Kolibris und p-esehleohtiiche Zuchtwahl. 453 



In seiner grossen Monographie^) (Vol 1) schildert Goiild 

 den Fkip der Kolilnis iiiil folgenden Worten : ,.The bird does 

 not usnally glidc throiigh t.he air wilh the (luick darling flighl 

 of a Swallow or Swift bul continnes trenudously nioving its 

 wings while passing fi'oni flower to flovver or when laking 

 in a 'morc distant flight over a high tree or across a river. When 

 P'oised before any object this action is so rapidly performed 

 tlicit it is impossihle for the eye to foüow each stroke and a 

 hazy semicirclc of indistinctness (jn each side of the bird is 

 all that is perceptible. ,,The wind prodnced by the wings of 

 these httle birds" says Mr. Salvin ,,appears to be very con- 

 siderable ; for I notized that while an exaniple of Cyanomyia 

 cyanocephala which had flown into the rooni was hovering 

 over a large piece of .wool the entire surface of the wool was 

 violently agitated. Although many short intermissions of rest 

 are taken dnring the day, the bird niay be said to live in air an 

 elemenl in whicli it ]jerfornis every kind of evolution with the 

 utniost ease freqnently rising |)erpendicnlarly, flying backward, 

 pirouetting or danzing of, as it were froni place to place or from 

 one pari of a ti'ee to anothei' sonietimes descending at others 

 ascending, it often nionnts np obove the towering Irees and 

 then schoots of like a little ineteor at a righl angle at another 

 times it qnietly bnzzes away among the little flowers near the 

 gronnd at one moment it is poised over a diminutive weed at 

 the next it is seen at a dislance of forty yards, whither it has 

 vanished with the quickness of thoiight. 



The foregoing reniarks arr froin |(crs;)nel oljservation of 



') J. Gould, Monograph of the Trochilidae, 5 Volumes. London 1849 

 bis 61, Suppl. 1880 — 87. Obwohl älteren Datums gewährt dieses Werk schon 

 wegen seiner bewunderungswürdigen farbigen Abbildungen immer noch den 

 besten Überblick. Ich habe deshalb bei wesentlichen nomenklatorischen Ver- 

 schiedenheiten auch die Namen nach Gould in Klammern beigefügt, obwohl 

 wir in Harter ts Bearbeitung der Familie Trochilidae im ,, Tierreich" (Ber- 

 lin 1900) eine neue kritische systematische tTbersicht besitzen, der ich in der 

 Benennung gefolgt bin. 



