426 CORACIIFORMES CHAP. 
of cottony down and feathers to the leaves or spathes of palms 
with their saliva, but also breed on native huts. 
Fossils referred to Cypselus and Collocalia occur in the Lower 
Miocene of France, while Aegialornis of the Eocene (p. 315) is 
placed here by M. Milne-Edwards and re-named Jachyornis. 
Fam. XII. The Trochilidae, or Humming-birds, so called from 
the sound often made by the vibrating wings, are New World 
forms noted for their grace and beauty. The Enghsh name 
dates back to at least 1652, while one species from Hispaniola 
is mentioned as “paxaro mosquito” by Oviedo in his Hystoria 
general de las Indias, as early as 1525. This appellation still 
remains as the French “ Oiseau-mouche,” that of 7rochi/us having 
been borrowed from Pliny by Barrere, who believed Humming- 
birds to be allied to the Wren, the 7Zrochilus in part of the 
Latin author. Tpoyidos, however, was applied by the Greeks to 
the smaller Plovers (p. 295), and apparently épyiros to the Wren, 
so that Pliny or his copyists originated a chain of errors. From 
native sources we have the names Guainumbi, Ourissia, and Colibri, 
from the Spanish “ Picaflor” and Tominejo (atom); from Mexico 
“Chupa-rosa” and “ Chupa-myrta” (Rose-sucker and Myrtle- 
sucker); from the West Indies “ Murmures” and “ Bourdons.” ? 
The sternum is enormously developed both in length and 
depth of keel, thus furnishing a wide base for the attachment of 
the particularly strong wing-muscles, which support the untiring 
flight. Herein Humming-birds resemble Swifts, but the head is 
much more compressed, and the bill is slender and elongated, 
except in nestlings; they are in fact the longest billed members of 
the Class Aves in proportion to their size, which in this Family 
reaches the minimum. Both mandibles may be serrated, and the 
maxilla is hooked in Androdon and Rhamphodon ; but for details 
of the variable beak, remiges and rectrices, reference must be made 
to the species described below. The metatarsus, feathered in such 
genera as Hriocnemis and Loddigesia, is short; the toes being 
usually diminutive, but sometimes stronger, and the claws either 
small and rounded, or elongated, curved, and sharp. The ten pri- 
maries, of which the outermost is the longest, except in Aithurus 
—where it is shorter than the next—are frequently rigid; in 
the male “ Sabre-wings”” (p. 435) the shafts of two or three are 
extraordinarily dilated and curved ; while the tenth is occasionally 
' For a fuller account, see A. Newton, Dict. Birds, 1893, pp. 440-451. 
