TROPICAL NATURE 



Display of Ornaments by the Male 



It is a well-known fact that when male birds possess any 

 unusual ornaments, they take such positions or perform such 

 evolutions as to exhibit them to the best advantage while 

 endeavouring to attract or charm the females, or in rivalry 

 with other males. It is therefore probable that the wonder- 

 fully varied decorations of humming-birds, whether burnished 

 breast - shields, resplendent tail, crested head, or glittering 

 back, are thus exhibited ; but almost the only actual observa- 

 tion of this kind is that of Mr. Belt, who describes how two 

 males of the Florisuga mellivora displayed their ornaments 

 before a female bird. One would shoot up like a rocket, 

 then, suddenly expanding the snow-white tail like an inverted 

 parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round 

 gradually to show off both back and front. The expanded 

 white tail covered more space than all the rest of the bird, 

 and was evidently the grand feature of the performance. 

 Whilst one was descending the other would shoot up and 

 come slowly down expanded. 1 



Food 



The food of humming-birds has been a matter of much 

 controversy. All the early writers, down to Buffon, believed 

 that they lived solely on the nectar of flowers ; but since that 

 time every close observer of their habits maintains that they 

 feed largely, and in some cases wholly, on insects. Azara 

 observed them on the La Plata in winter, taking insects out 

 of the webs of spiders at a time and place where there were 

 no flowers. Bullock, in Mexico, declares that he saw them 

 catch small butterflies, and that he found many kinds of 

 insects in their stomachs. Waterton made a similar state- 

 ment. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of specimens have 

 since been dissected by collecting naturalists, and in almost 

 every instance their stomachs have been found full of insects 

 sometimes, but not generally, mixed with a proportion of 

 honey. Many of them in fact may be seen catching gnats 

 and other small insects just like fly-catchers, sitting on a dead 

 twig over water, darting off for a time in the air, and then 

 1 The Naturalist in Nicaragua, p. 112. 



