61 FOOD AND HABITS. 



mount upward with strong rushing wings, per- 

 haps for five hundred feet. They then separate, 

 and each shoots diagonally towards the ground, 

 like a ball from a rifle, and wheeling round 

 comes up to the blossoms again, and sucks as if 

 it had not moved away at all. Frequently one 

 alone will mount in this manner, or dart on in- 

 visible wing diagonally upward, looking exactly 

 like a humble-bee. Indeed, the figure of the 

 smaller Humming-birds on the wing, their 

 rapidity, their arrowy course, and their whole 

 manner of flight, are entirely those of an insect, 

 and one who has watched the flight of a largo 

 beetle or bee will have a very good idea of one 

 of these tropic gems painted against the sky. I 

 have examined all our three species at one time 

 engaged in sucking the blossoms of the moringa, 

 and have observed that whereas POLTTMUS and 

 MANGO expand and depress the tail when hover- 

 ing before flowers, HUMILIS, on the contrary, 

 erects the tail, but not invariably. 



" All the Humming-birds have more or less 

 t.he habit of throwing the body and tail into odd 

 Contortions ; this seems to be most the case with 

 Mango, but is perhaps more observable in Polyt- 

 mus, from the effect that such motions have on 

 the long feathers of the tail. That the object of 

 these quick turns is the capture of insects I am 

 sure, having watched one thus engaged pretty 

 close to me. I drew up and observed it care- 

 fully, and saw the minute flies in the air \\ inch 



