444 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



webs often seriously incommode them. When a Hamming-Bird perceives a 

 spider in the midst of its net, it rarely fails to make an attack, and with 

 such rajjidity that one cannot follow the movement, but in the twinkling of 

 an eye the spider has disappeared. This is not only done to small spiders, 

 which doubtless they devour, but also to others too large to be thus eaten. 



Not content with thus chastising small enemies, the Humming-Bird also 

 contends with others far more powerful, and which give them a good deal 

 of trouble. They have been known to engage in an unequal contest with the 

 Sparrow-Hawk, yet rarely without coming off the conquerors. In this strife 

 they have the advantage of numbers, their diminutive size, and the rapidity 

 and the irregularity of their own movements. Several unite in these at- 

 tacks, and, in rushing upon their powerful enemy, they always aim at his 

 eyes. The Hawk soon appreciates his inability to contend with these tor- 

 menting little furies, and beats an ignominious retreat. 



Advantage is taken of this aggressive disposition of these birds, by the 

 hunter, to capture them. In their combats with one another, or in their 

 rash attacks upon various offensive objects, even upon the person of the 

 snarer himself, they are made prisoners through their own rashness and 

 reckless impetuosity. 



In enumerating the prominent characteristics of this remarkable family, 

 we should not omit to refer to the lavish profusion of colors of every tint 

 and shade, excelling in lustre and brilliancy even the costliest gems, with 

 which Nature has adorned their plumage. And not only are nearly all the 

 birds of this group thus decked out with hues of the most dazzling bright- 

 ness and splendor, when alive and resplendent in the tropical sun, but many 

 also display tlie most wonderfully varying shades and colors, according to 

 the position in which they are presented to the eye. The sides of tlie fibres 

 of each feather are of a dift'erent color from the surface, and change as seen 

 in a front or an oblique direction, and while living, these birds, by their 

 movements, can cause these feathers to change very suddenly to very differ- 

 ent hues. Thus the Selasphorus rufus can change in a twinkling the vivid 

 fire-color of its expanded throat to a light green, and the species known as 

 the Mexican Star {Cynanthus lucifer) changes from a bright crimson to an 

 equally brilliant blue. 



The nests and the eggs of the Humming-Birds, though in a few exceptional 

 cases differing as to the form and position of the former, are similar, so far as 

 known, in the whole family. The eggs are always two in number, white 

 and unspotted, oblong in shape, and equally obtuse at either end. The only 

 differences to be noticed are in the relative variations in size. The nests 

 are generally saddled upon the upper side of a horizontal branch, are cup- 

 like in shape, and are largely made up of various kinds of soft vegetable 

 down, covered by an outward coating of lichens and mosses fastened upon 

 them by the glue-like saliva of the bird. In T. colubris the soft inner por- 

 tion of the nest is composed of the delicate downy covering of the leaf-buds 



