INTRODUCTION. Ior 
and seventy-six species of these Birds. They are all exclusively 
confined to America, but different species are so distributed 
that the whole group may be said to range over that continent 
from Alaska to Patagonia. 
Only second to the Humming-birds in beauty are the Sun- 
birds, which are as exclusively confined to the Old World as the 
Humming-birds are to the New. They are mainly African 
Fig. 106. 

The Metallic Sun-bird (Nectarinia metallica). 
forms, but they also range through India to Australia. The 
Metallic Sun-bird (Nectarinia metallica) may be taken as a type 
of the group, which embraces a hundred and five different 
species, arranged in nine genera. They have long and slender 
bills like the Humming-birds. 
Of those charming familiar little Birds known to us as Tits, 
one of the most charming is the Blue Tit (Parus coeruleus), 
