HUMMING-BIRDS 315 



iridescent, refulgent, celestial, glittering, shining, are con- 

 stantly used to name or describe the different species. 



No less remarkable than the colours are the varied develop- 

 ments of plumage with which these birds are adorned. The 

 head is often crested in a variety of ways ; either a simple 

 flat crest, or with radiating feathers, or diverging into two 

 horns, or spreading laterally like wings, or erect and bushy, 

 or recurved and pointed like that of a plover. The throat 

 and breast are usually adorned with broad scale-like feathers, 

 or these diverge into a tippet, or send out pointed collars, or 

 elegant frills of long and narrow plumes tipped with metallic 

 spots of various colours. But the tail is even a more varied 

 and beautiful ornament, either short and rounded, but pure 

 white or some other strongly contrasted tint ; or with short 

 pointed feathers forming a star; or with the three outer 

 feathers on each side long and tapering to a point ; or larger, 

 and either square or round, or deeply forked or acutely 

 pointed; or with the two middle feathers excessively long 

 and narrow ; or with the tail very long and deeply forked, 

 with broad and richly-coloured feathers; or with the two 

 outer feathers wire-like and having broad spoon-shaped tips. 

 All these ornaments, whether of the head, neck, breast, or 

 tail, are invariably coloured in some effective or brilliant 

 manner, and often contrast strikingly with the rest of the 

 plumage. Again, these colours often vary in tint according 

 to the direction in which they are seen. In some species they 

 must be looked at from above, in others from below ; in some 

 from the front, in others from behind, in order to catch the full 

 glow of the metallic lustre ; hence, when the birds are seen in 

 their native haunts, the colours come and go and change with 

 their motions, so as to produce a startling and beautiful effect. 



The bill differs greatly in length and shape, being either 

 straight or gently curved, in some species bent like a sickle, 

 in others turned up like the bill of the avoset. It is usually 

 long and slender, but in one group is so enormously developed 

 that it is nearly the same length as the rest of the bird. The 

 legs, usually little seen, are in some groups adorned with 

 globular tufts of white, brown, or black down, a peculiarity 

 possessed by no other birds. The reader will now be in a 

 position to understand how the four hundred species of 



