504 Mr. G. E. Lodge on some 



males thus one afternoon. I hung a bunch of rose-apple 

 blossoms in the entrance of my net by string, then stalked 

 the Humming-birds and held the net up as near to them as 

 I could reach. One would come down now and then and 

 hover a yard off in front, and then perhaps dash round and 

 hover again close up to the back of the net, and then whir 

 oflF up to the top of the tree again. The two I caught came 

 down fearlessly and hovered close up to the blossoms, when a 

 rapid swoop of the net made them prisoners. 



The Jamaicans call the Mellisuga minima the " Bee Hum- 

 ming-bird/^ which is an appropriate name for it, as its habits 

 are very like those of a bee, and there is not such a very 

 great difference between the sizes of the two creatures, this 

 little bird being only 2f inches from tip of beak to end of 

 tail. The negroes in Jamaica call all Humming-birds 

 " Doctor-birds,^^ as they do also in Barbados and Dominica. 

 A boy told me that doctors used the dried bodies for in- 

 gredients in some kind of medicine. Of course this is a 

 fairy tale. But I think it is mentioned in a book called 

 ' Obeah in the West Indies,' by J. Hesketh Bell, that the 

 Obi men (sorcerers) use the bodies of Humming-birds as 

 charms in certain cases, I think to protect banana and yam 

 patches from thieves, the blacks always being highly super- 

 stitious. This would doubtless account for the name. 



The Bee Humming-bird makes an exceedingly loud 

 buzzing. On one occasion I looked among the grass at my 

 feet for what I thought was a big bee or beetle buzzing on 

 the ground, and presently discovered that it was one of these 

 tiny birds slowly droning away among the twigs of a log- 

 wood tree a few yards off. It was not feeding, but slowly 

 buzzing about and settling on twigs and then flying off again, 

 as if not satisfied with its perch. When flying away it looks 

 exactly like a big bee, holding a straight course and flying 

 at a fair pace. It looks very thick-set when at rest. This 

 is chiefly owing to its very short tail. It droops its wings 

 under its tail, which was the constant habit of all the Hum- 

 ming-birds I observed. I have watched it on a plumbago- 

 tree while resting after feeding among the pretty blue 



