on the Birds of St. (hoi.v. 1 39 



Gosse, and several others gifted with the " peu of a ready 

 writer " have so fully described, as far as words will admit, the 

 habits of different members of the family Trochilidce, that it is 

 unnecessary to say much on this score. Their at^pearance is so 

 entirely unlike that of any other birds, that it is hopeless to 

 attempt in any way to bring a just conception of it to the ideas 

 of those who have not crossed the Atlantic; and even the 

 comparison so often made between them and the Sphingidce, 

 though doubtless in the main true, is much to the advantage 

 of the latter. One is admiring the clustering stars of a 

 Scarlet Cordia, the snowy cornucopias of a Portlandia, or some 

 other 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 fi'ont of the flower ; an 

 instant more, it steadies itself, and one perceives the space be- 

 tween each pair of threads occupied by a grey film ; 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, — and all this 

 so rapidly that the word on one's lips is still unspoken, scarcely 

 the thought in one's mind changed. It was a bold man or an 

 ignorant one who first ventured to depict Humming Birds fly- 

 ing; but it cannot be denied that representations of them in that 

 attitude are often of special use to the ornithologist. The pecu- 

 liar action of this, and probably many or all other species of 

 the family, is such, that at times, in flying, it makes the wings 

 almost meet both in front and behind at each vibration. Thus, 

 when a bird chances to enter a room, it will generally go 

 buzzing along the cornice : standing beneath where it is, one 

 will find that the axis of the body is vertical, and each wing is 

 describing a nearly perfect semicircle. As might be expected, 

 the pectoral muscles are very large, indeed the sternum of this 

 bird is a good deal bigger than that of the common Chimney 

 Swallow {Hirundo rustica, L.). But the extraordinary rapidity 

 with which the vibrations are effected seems to be chiefly 

 caused by these powerful muscles acting on the very short 

 wing-bones, which are not half the length of the same parts in 



