HUMMING-BIRD 445 



found by the " trochilidists," or special students of the Trochilidse, 

 insufficient for the purpose of arranging these birds in groups, and 

 characters on wliich genera can be founded have to be sought in 

 the st3de and coloration of plumage, as well as in the form and 

 proportions of those parts which are most generally deemed 

 sufficient to furnish them. Looking to the large number of species 

 to be taken into account, convenience has demanded what science 

 would withhold, and the genera established by the ornithologists of 

 a preceding generation have been broken up by their successors 

 into multitudinous sections — the more adventurous making from 

 150 to 180 of such groups, the modest being content with 120 or 

 thereabouts, but the last dignifying each of them by the title of 

 genus. It is of course obvious that these small divisions cannot 

 be here considered in detail, nor w^ould much advantage accrue by 

 giving statistics from the works of the latest trochilidists, Messrs. 

 Gould,^ Mulsant,^ and Elliot.^ It would be as unprofitable here 

 to trace the successive steps by which the original genus Trochilus 

 of Linnaeus, or the two genera Polytmus and Mellisuga of Brisson, 

 have been split into others, or have been added to, by modern 

 writers, for not one of these professes to have arrived at any final, 

 but only a provisional, arrangement ; it seems, however, expedient 

 to notice the fact that some of the authors of the last century* 

 supposed themselves to have seen the way to dividing what we 

 now know as the Family Trocliilidx into two groups, the distinction 

 between which was that in the one the bill was arched and in the 

 other straight, since that dift'erence has been insisted on in many 

 works. This was especially the view taken by Brisson and Buflfon, 

 who termed the birds having the arched bill " Colibris," and those 

 having it straight " Oisemtx-mouches." The distinction wholly 

 breaks down, not merely because there are TrocMlidce which possess 

 almost every gradation of decurvation of the bill, but some which 

 have the bill upturned after the manner of an Avoset,^ while 

 it may be remarked that several of the species placed by those 

 authorities amoncr the "t'o/i^ris" are not Humminfr-birds at all.*^ 



^ A Monograph of the Trochilidai or Humming-birds, 5 vols. imp. fol. 

 London : 1861 (with Introduction in 8vo). 



^ Histoirc naturellc des Oiseatix-Mouches ou Colibris, 4 vols, with supplenitnt, 

 imp. 4to, Lyon-Geueve-Bale : 1874-77. 



^ Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, No. 317, A Classification and 

 Synopsis of the Trochilidx, 1 vol. imp. 4to, Washington: 1879. 



■* Salerne must be excepted, especially as he was rebuked by Buffon for doing 

 what we now deem right. 



® For example Avocettula recurvirostris of Guiana and A. euryptera of 

 Colombia. 



^ Mr. Salvin's list [Cat. B. Br. Mns. xvi. pp. 27-433), and Mr. Ridgway's 

 work {Rep. U. S. Nat. Mns. 1890, pp. 253-380) can only be named here, as neither 

 appeared in time for the results to be utilized in this article. 



