THE HUMMING BIRDS 1791 



antipathy to the racket-tailed Loddigesia, which it was always driving away from 

 the flowers. Its voice is quite characteristic, a tsi-tsi-tsi, very loudly uttered, and in 

 a descending scale, and on visiting flowers it makes a sort of clapping noise, like 

 that produced by pigeons when striking their wings together over their backs. 



Although resembling the last in their variety of form' and coloration, 

 this group differs in the absence of serrations in the cutting edges of 



Group *ke beak. As our first representatives of the group may be noticed 

 the curved-billed hermits {Eutoxeres} , of which there are four species, 

 all remarkable for the strong curvature of the beak, which describes fully one- third 

 of a circle. The plumage is dull, and devoid of metallic sheen; while the tail is 

 rounded, with the extremities of the feathers pointed. In Peru one of these hum- 

 ming birds (E. condamini) has been observed feeding from the flowers of a plant, in 

 which the curved form of the corolla exactly corresponded with the curvature of the 

 bill of the bird, while at the same time the bald patch on the centre of the crown of 

 the latter affords a fair field for the pistils to smear, as the bird probes the flower. 

 The plant in question is abundant on the sides of the paths, and is always covered 

 with plenty of flowers; but although the bird is often met with, it cannot be called 

 plentiful. It stops but a short time on the flower, and is therefore not very easy to 

 procure. In the stomach remains of different species of gnats have been observed. In 

 Salvin's hermit (E. salvini}, ranging from Costa Rica to Panama, the head is wholly 

 feathered; while the species also differs from the last in having no buff color on the 

 outer tail feathers, which have likewise no white tips; there is also no blue patch on 

 the neck. Mr. Merrill, who met with the species in Panama, writes that "one day, 

 while hunting a short distance from the camp for humming birds, I was startled by 

 the swift approach of a small object through the close thicket, which darted like a 

 rifle bullet past me, with a loud hum and buzzing of wings. Indeed, it was this 

 great noise which accompanied its flight, being so much greater than I had ever 

 heard before from any of these winged meteors of the southern forests, that espe- 

 cially attracted my attention as something uncommon. The bird continued its flight 

 but a short distance beyond the spot where I stood, when it suddenly stopped in its 

 rapid course directly in front of a flower. There for a moment poising itself in this 

 position, it darted upon the flower in a peculiar manner; in fact, the movements of 

 this little creature which now followed were exceeding curious to me. Instead of 

 inserting its beak into the calyx by advancing in a direct line toward the flower, as 

 customary with this class of birds according to my limited observations, this one 

 performed a curvilinear movement, at first stooping downward while it introduced its 

 bill into the calyx, and then, when apparently the beak had reached the desired 

 locality in the flower, its body suddenly dropped downward, so that it seemed as if it 

 were suspended from the flower by its beak. That this was not actually the case, 

 the continued rapid movement of its wings demonstrated beyond a doubt. In this 

 position it remained for the ordinary length of time, and then by performing these 

 movements, in the reverse order and direction, it freed itself from the flower, and 

 afterward proceeded to the adjoining one, when the same operation was repeated. 

 The flower was that of a species of palm, the blossoms of which are attached alter- 

 nately on either side to a pendent stalk. Each flower resembles an inverted Roman 



