FAMILY TROCHILID,E 



as to be recognized by everybody at sight. 

 Their very minute size (the family includes 

 the smallest of all birds and none that would 

 not be called small in any other family) , their 

 beautiful and varied plumage, usually iri- 

 descent with metallic tints, their distinctive 

 build and unique flight with the beats so 

 rapid that the wings appear as a blur and 

 produce the whirring or humming sound that 

 gives the family its name, are all characteris- 

 tic and unmistakable. 



In anatomy and in the structure of their 

 long, narrow wings they show resemblances 

 to the swifts, but have a long, awl-like bill 

 and slender tongue adapted to extracting the 

 minute insects and the sweet juices from the 

 flowers before which they hover with rapidly 

 beating wings. Their notes are shrill and 

 squeaky and generally sound too much alike 

 to human ears to be of much assistance in 

 distinguishing the species. In character they 

 are nervous and pugnacious, the males chas- 

 ing away birds many times their size from the 

 vicinity of their nests, which are beautiful 

 specimens of bird architecture. Two plain 

 white eggs are laid. 



The hummingbirds are entirely confined to 

 the New World, most of them occurring in 

 tropical America, a few in the temperate re- 

 gions (in the eastern United States only one 

 species) . 



The males are usually so conspicuous and 

 characteristic in plumage that the difficulty 

 of the bird student in recognizing them is 

 chiefly due to their minute size, rapid, darting 

 flight and incessant activity. The females 

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