10 GENERAL CHARACTERS. 



Plumage. That of the male, as a rule, ex- 

 tremely brilliant and sumptuous, glittering with 

 metallic effulgence, and reflecting varying tints 

 in different lights. The plumage of the female 

 is nearly always more sombre, and seldom dis- 

 plays any great extent of metallic lustre. The 

 young males resemble the females. 



Food. Various insects, such as minute Cole- 

 optera, gnats, tipulse, spiders, together with the 

 pollen and honey of flowers. 



Geographical Distribution. America ; princi- 

 pally, but not exclusively, between the tropics 

 and in the adjacent islands. 



Mr. Vigors, in his paper on the " Natural 

 Affinities that connect the Orders and Families 

 of Birds" in the Linn. Trans., vol. xiv., con- 

 siders the Sun- birds of Africa and India, or Cin~ 

 nyridae, and the Trochilida, as constituting the 

 normal group of the Tenuirostres, or Suctorial 

 Birds, and, consequently, as being intimately 

 related to each other. And by way of distinc- 

 tion, compared with the aberrant group of the 

 Suctorial Birds, (viz. Promeropidoe, Meliphagida, 

 and Nectariniadce,) he observes that these two 

 families never hop from flower to flower, nor 

 employ the feet in climbing; but, on the con- 

 trary, make no use of the foot while extracting 

 their food from the blossoms ; and, that during 

 the process of feeding, are poised entirely on 

 the wing. These two normal families, he adds, 

 approach each other in the slenderness of their 



