88 The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
panded. The entertainment ended in a fight between the 
two performers; but whether the more beautiful or the 
more pugnacious were the accepted suitor, I know not. 
Another fine humming-bird seen about this brook was the 
long-billed, fire-throated Heliomaster pallidiceps (Gould), 
ear ee 
-— ——— 
Tongue of Humming-bird, with the blades a little opened 
generally engaged in probing long narrow-throated red 
flowers, forming, with their attractive nectar, complete 
traps for the small insects on which the humming-birds 
principally feed, the bird returning the favour by carrying 
the pollen of one flower to another. A third species, also 
seen at this brook, Petasophora delphine, Less., is of a dull 
brown colour, with brilliant purple ear-feathers and metallic- 
green throat. Both it and Florisuga mellivora are short 
billed, generally catching flying insects, and do not frequent 
flowers so much as other humming-birds. I have seen the 
Petasophora fly into the centre of a dancing column of midges 
and rapidly darting first at one and then at another, secure 
half-a-dozen of the tiny flies before the column was broken 
SS 
Tongue of large red-crested Woodpecker. 
up; then retire to a branch and wait until it was re-formed, 
when it made another sudden descent on them. A fourth 
species (Heliothrix barroti, Bourc.), brilliant green above, 
white below, with a shining purple crest, has also a short bill, 
and I never saw it about flowers, but always hovering under- 
neath leaves and searching for the small soft-bodied spiders 
that are found there. Two of them that I examined had 
these spiders in their crops. I have no doubt many hum- 
ming-birds suck the honey from flowers, as I have seen it 
exude from their bills when shot, but others do not frequent 
them. The principal food of all is small insects. I have 
examined scores of them, and never without finding insects 
in their crops. Their generally long bills have been spoken 
