444 HUMMING-BIRD 
small insects that have been attracted to feed upon the honey.? 
These, on the tongue being withdrawn into the bill, are caught by 
the mandibles (furnished in the males of many species with fine, 
horny, saw-like teeth?), and swallowed in the usual way. The 
stomach is small, moderately muscular, and with the inner coat 
slightly hardened. There seem to be no ceca. The trachea is 
remarkably short, the bronchi beginning high up on the throat, and 
song-muscles are wholly wanting, as in all other Cypselomorphex.® 
Humming-birds, as is well known, comprehend the smallest 
members of the Class Aves. The largest among them measures no 
more than 8 inches and a half,* and the least 2 inches and three- 
eighths in length, for it is now admitted generally that Sloane 
must have been in error when he described (Voyage, ii. p. 308) the 
“Least Humming-bird of Jamaica” as “about 14 inch long from 
the end of the bill to that of the tail”—unless, indeed, he meant 
the proximal end of each, an interpretation, however, that will not 
save Edwards and Latham from the charge of careless misstate- 
ment, when they declare that they had received such a bird from 
that island. Next to their generally small size, the best known 
characteristic of the 7Trochilide is the wonderful brilliancy of the 
plumage of nearly all their forms, in which respect they are sur- 
passed by no other birds, and are only equalled by a few, as, for 
instance, by the Nectariniide (SUN-BIRD) of the tropical parts of 
the Old World, in popular belief so often confounded with them, 
and even by some mistaken naturalists thought to be their allies. 
The number of species of Humming-birds now known to exist 
considerably exceeds 400; and, though none depart very widely 
from what a morphologist would deem the typical structure of the 
Family, the amount of modification, within certain limits, presented 
by the various forms is surprising and even bewildering to the un- 
initiated. But the features that are ordinarily chosen by systematic 
ornithologists in drawing up their schemes of classification are 
1 It is probable that in various members of the Zrochilidx the structure of 
the tongue, and other parts correlated therewith, will be found subject to several 
and perhaps considerable modifications, as is the case in various members of the 
Picide. At present there are scarcely more than half a dozen species of Humming- 
birds of which it can be said that any part of their anatomy is known. 
2 These are very plain in Rhkamphodon nevius and Androdon xquatorialis. 
3 Gosse (B. Jamaica, p. 180) says that Mellisuga minima, the smallest species 
of the Family, has ‘‘a real song”’—but the like is not recorded of any other. 
4 There are several species in which the tail is very much elongated, such 
as the well-known Aithurus polytmus of Jamaica, and the remarkable Loddigesia 
mirabilis of Chachapoyas in Peru, which last was for many years only known 
from a unique specimen (Zd7s, 1880, p. 152; Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, pp. 827-834, 
fig.) ; but ‘‘trochilidists” in giving their measurements do not take these extra- 
ordinary developments into account. 
