1784 THE PICARIAN BIRDS 



To the colonist of South Africa, colies are commonly known by the name of mouse 

 birds, and are reported to be good eating. They have a rapid flight, like that of a 

 parrot, with very quick beats of the wings, and are generally found in flocks of six 

 or eight individuals, which when disturbed fly off together. Their food generally 

 consists of fruit and berries, occasionally insects being taken, when their other sus- 

 tenance is scanty. 



At the Cape the white-backed coly (C. capensis) is not uncommon in gardens 

 during the fruit season, ranging about in small families of from six to eight indi- 

 viduals. They fly with a rapid, though labored flight, generally at a lower level 

 than the object at which they aim, and on nearing it they rise upward with a sudden 

 abrupt curve. They creep about the branches like parrots, and hang, head down- 

 ward, without inconvenience; indeed, it is said that they invariably sleep in this 

 position, many of them congregated together in a ball. In Natal Mr. Ayres states 

 that the white-backed coly lives entirely on fruits, as does Mr. Andersson, who 

 gives some information as to the flight and nesting habits of the species. The flight, 

 he says, is short and feeble, seldom extending beyond the nearest bush or tree, on 

 reaching which the bird perches on one of the lower branches, and then gradually 

 glides and creeps upward through the foliage, using both bill and feet for that pur- 

 pose. The nest, which he found in a small bush, was composed externally of grass 

 and twigs, lined internally with soft grass; the eggs were white, and three in num- 

 ber. Another well-known representative of the genus is the South African coly ( C. 

 striatus}, which is brown above w;th numerous dusky cross-lines on the plumage, the 

 head being crested and a little more ashy, while the forehead and lores are reddish; 

 the sides of the face, throat, and breast ashy brown, the latter with blackish cross- 

 lines; the rest of the under surface being ochrey buff. The total length of the typ- 

 ical form is about fourteen inches, but there is considerable local variation in this 

 respect. L,arge at the Cape, the bird becomes smaller as it approaches Abyssinia, 

 but is of about the same size in Senegambia, and then gradually decreases in size in 

 its west coast habitats; this variation in size being an invariable rule with African 

 birds. The South African coly breeds in Natal, building its nest in the thick fork 

 of a mimosa or other low tree, well sheltered by creepers and foliage above. 



THE HUMMING BIRDS 

 . Family TROCHILID^E 



Mainly confined to Central and South America, where they range from the 

 steaming tropical forests of Brazil to the cold and barren rocks of Tierra del Fuego, 

 but also extending into Mexico, humming birds are now regarded, in spite of their 

 difference in form and habits, as near allies of the swifts. To a certain extent, in- 

 deed, the difference in the two groups is not so strongly marked in the young as in 

 the adult condition, seeing that, while in the full-grown humming bird the beak is 

 always long and slender, in the nestling it is short and wide like that of a swift. In 

 the structure of their palate, according to recent researches, both groups conform to 



