500 Mr. G. E. Lodge on some 



lantana^ and presently again discovers him hovering over and 

 among the blossoms twenty yards away. Presently he stops 

 feeding and sits on a little twig, his long tail-feathers almost 

 reaching to the ground, a little round ball of beautiful 

 feathers, the two ends of his long black crest just sticking 

 out from the nape of the neck. Again, with a clear little 

 piping cry, he shoots off on the war-path, as he sees a little 

 white-breasted hen of the same species, also busily employed 

 in filling her ever-hungry little stomach ; and the pair dash 

 off, whizzing and zigzagging in a mazy course through the 

 bushes with most marvellous speed and dexterity, screaming 

 in their mad chase, until they are quickly lost to sight — but 

 not to mind. 



Sometimes the Long-tails hunt insects on the wing, and 

 splendid they look as they dash hither and thither in the air, 

 frequently stopping in their rapid evolutions and hovering 

 perfectly motionless for several seconds at a time, always in 

 a very upright position, as if they were suspended by an 

 invisible thread by the beak. Then, if you are sitting 

 on a good high bridge over a river, with a dense fringe of 

 sombre-coloured rose-apple trees on both banks 30 or 40 

 feet high, spangled with their lovely creamy blossoms, these 

 overshadowed by tall, graceful, ever-bending bamboos, you 

 have a beautiful background as a setting for the delicate 

 little emerald bird shooting about in the air, glowing in 

 the rays of the tropical sun. Presently a dusky bird, 

 rather larger than the Long-tail, whizzes out from a 

 bare twig where he has been sitting unobserved, . and also 

 takes to fly-catching in the air. He looks sober enough in 

 colour until there is suddenly a purple flash underneath 

 him, as he flirts out into a wide fan his broad tail-feathers, 

 and this he incessantly does as he hovers about in the air. 

 This is the so called Mango Humming-bird [Lampornis 

 mango) , and perhaps the company will be joined by one or 

 two more, now darting about in the air and anon dashing 

 off" to rest on some twig or to pursue their explorations 

 among; the blossoms on the trees at the side of the river. 



