PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 3 



tracting the admiration of the ornithologists of 

 our island and of the adjacent continent. 



We are further justified in our prediction, by 

 a consideration of the fact, that, as our dis- 

 coveries or territorial explorations in the New 

 "World advance, so do new Trochilida3, local in 

 their habitat, remote and isolated, restricted to 

 certain circumscribed spots, arrest, from time 

 to time, the eye of the traveller ; and of these, 

 specimens not procured without difficulty, one 

 after another, find their way to Europe ; often, 

 indeed, as waifs and strays stranded on the coast, 

 or as curiosities of whose value the possessor is 

 ignorant. But now that attention is directed to 

 these birds, greater will be the influx, and with 

 more purpose the object of their transmission. 

 A definite value is now attached to them, and a 

 new species will command far more than its 

 weight in gold. 



Besides, we are now only beginning to study 

 the history, to contemplate the manifold forms 

 of the Humming Birds ; as yet the minor groups 

 into which they resolve themselves, and the 

 genera constituting those groups, are all vague, 

 indefinite, and in confusion ; yet three hundred 

 species are counted up ; but the ornithologist 

 well knows that other forms, for which he is 

 waiting, must arrive, before the history of the 

 Trochilidae can be modelled into a harmonious 

 consistency. Every attempt, however, is a step 

 in the right direction ; but completion is at pre- 



