TROCHILID.E — THE HUMMING-BIRDS. 437 



Family TROCHILID-SI. — The' Humming-Birds. 



Char. Least of all birds ; sternum very deep ; bill subulate, and generally longer than 

 the head, straight, arched, or upcurved. Tongue composed of two lengthened cylindrical 

 united tubes, capable of great protrusion, and bifid at tip ; nostrils basal, linear, and 

 covered by an operculum ; wings lengthened, pointed ; first quill usually longest except 

 in Aithurus, where it is the second ; primaries, 10 ; secondaries, 6 ; tail of ten feathers. 

 Tarsi and feet very diminutive, claws very sharp. (Gould.) 



There is no group of birds so interesting- to the ornithologist or to the 

 casual observer as the Humming-Birds, at once the smallest in size, the most 

 gorgeously beautiful in color, and almost the most abundant in species, of 

 any single family of birds. They are strictly confined to the continent and 

 isla.nds of America, and are most abundant in the Central American and 

 Andean States, though single species range almost to the Arctic regions on 

 the north and to Patagonia on the south, as well as from the sea-coast to 

 the frozen summits of the Andes. Many are very limited in their range ; 

 some confined to particular islands, even though of small dimensions, or to 

 the summits of certain mountain-peaks. 



The bill of the Humming-Bird is awl-shaped or subulate ; thin, and sharp- 

 pointed ; straight or curved ; sometimes as long as the head, sometimes 

 much longer. The mandibles are excavated to the tip lor the lodgement of 

 the tongue, and form a tube by the close apposition of their cutting edges. 

 There is no indication of stiff bristly feathers at the base of the mouth. 

 The tongue has some resemblance to that of the Woodpecker in the elonga- 

 tion of the cornua backwards, so as to pass round the back of the skull, and 

 then anteriorly to the base of the bill. The tongue itself is of very peculiar 

 structure, consisting anteriorly of two hollow threads closed at the ends and 

 united behind. The food of the Humming-Bird consists almost entirely of 

 insects, which are captured by protruding the tongue in flowers of various 

 shapes without opening the bill very wide. 



The genera of Humming-Birds are A^ery difficult to define. This is partly 

 owing to tlie great number of the species, of which nearly four hundred and 

 fifty have been recognized by authors, all of them with but few exceptions 

 diminutive in size and almost requiring a lens for their critical examination, 

 so that characters for generic separation, distinct enough in other families, are 

 here overlooked or not fully appreciated. A still greater difficulty, perhaps, is 

 the great difference in form, especially of the tail, between the male and female, 

 the young male occupying an intermediate position. The coloration, too, is 

 almost always very different with sex and age^and usually any generic 

 characters derived from features other than those of bill, feet, and wing do 

 not apply to the females at all. 



In the large number of species of Humming-Birds arranged in about one 



