A GENEEAL HISTOET 



HUMMING BIRDS, on TEOCHILIDJS. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



THE modest volume which we here offer to the 

 public, owes its origin to the superb cabinet of 

 Humming Birds, in the possession of J. Gould, 

 F.E.S., and now exhibited in the Gardens of 

 the Zoological Society of London, Eegent's 

 Park. This collection, unrivalled in Europe, 

 and displayed to the utmost advantage, contains 

 about three hundred distinct species, of which 

 many are yet undescribed, and to which others 

 will from time to time undoubtedly be added. 



There is, perhaps, no group of birds less tho- 

 roughly understood than the Trochilidae, or of 

 which the component parts have been acquired 

 by the European ornithologist more slowly, or 

 with greater difficulty. 



That a very few species only should have been 

 known to Linnaeus will not surprise us: but 

 long after the time of the great Swedish sys- 

 tematist, the number of recorded species was 

 B 



