LONG-TAILED HUMMING-BIRD. 101 



ries appearing at all seasons on the same stalk as 

 the flowers. And here at any time one may with 

 tolerable certainty calculate on finding these very 

 lovely birds. But it is in March, April, and May, 

 that they abound : I suppose I have sometimes seen 

 not fewer than a hundred come successively to rifle 

 the blossoms within the space of half as many 

 yards in the course of a forenoon. They are, 

 however, in no respect gregarious ; though three or 

 four may be at one moment hovering round the 

 blossoms of the same bush, there is no associa- 

 tion; each is governed by his individual prefer- 

 ence, and each attends to his own afiairs. It is 

 worthy of remark that males compose by far the 

 greater portion of the individuals observed at this 

 elevation. I do not know why it should be so, 

 but we see very few females there, whereas in 

 the lowlands this sex outnumbers the other. In 

 March, a large number are found to be clad in 

 the livery of the adult male, but without long 

 tail-feathers; others have the characteristic feathers 

 lengthened, but in various degrees. These are, 

 I have no doubt, males of the preceding season. 

 It is also quite common to find one of the long 

 feathers much shorter than the other ; which I 

 account for by concluding that the shorter is re- 

 placing one that had been accidentally lost. In 

 their aerial encounters with each other, a tail- 

 feather is sometimes displaced. One day several 

 of these " young bloods" being together, a regu- 

 lar tumult ensued, somewhat similar to a sparrow- 

 fight : — such twittering, and fluttering, and dart- 



