West- Indian Humming-birds. 503 



fed for some time on the flowers there, although it was 

 raining pretty hard at the time and was getting dark. This 

 was about 5,30 p.m. 



The female A. pohjtmus rests in a more slim position than 

 does her mate. Her note is exactly the same. I have no 

 record of the note of the Lampornis ; it seems to be a very 

 silent bird. Its dark colour makes it appear a larger bird 

 than it really is. Its tail is its chief beauty. This is com- 

 posed of broad feathers, the two central ones being nearly 

 black ; the rest are a glowing reddish-purple colour, broadly 

 barred towards the ends with greenish black ; extreme tips 

 greyish white. This fine tail is continually flirted widely 

 open as the bird is feeding, and makes a beautiful purple 

 fan. L. mango seems friendly towards its own and other 

 species, and at times several will feed amicably together, but 

 as a rule not more than one is seen at a time. A. pohjtmus, 

 on the contrary, frequently appears to live in little colonies, 

 perhaps a dozen or so frequenting a patch of rose-apple trees. 

 This, however, refers only to the male bird. 



The tiny Mellisuga minima was far less generally dis- 

 tributed than the other two species. It was fairly com- 

 mon at Constant Spring (six miles out of Kingston), and 

 there were one or two in the hotel grounds at Spanish 

 Town ; but besides these I saw only two others at Montpclier, 

 and none at all elsewhere. At Constant Spring they 

 were mostly to be found by the roadsides and on the waste 

 pieces of land that were thickly grown with ageratum, which 

 plant they seemed to be very fond of, and which grew in 

 profusion about 3 or 4 feet in height. Here, among butter- 

 flies, bees, and banana " quits," they hunted for their prey, 

 and I vainly endeavoured to shoot them with sand ; it had no 

 efl'ect upon them at all. I also as vainly tried to catch them 

 in my butterfly-net ; they would always keep just out of 

 reach. When resting on a twig, I could sometimes get a 

 butterfly-net within 2 feet of them, and then they would just 

 shoot off" like big bees and begin merrily feeding away among 

 the ageratum again. A. polytmus can be caught in a 

 butterfly-net with patience. I captured a couple of splendid 



