SWIFT-LIKE BIRDS 



175 



bird, there is no justification whatever for the name " goatsucker " 

 which has been applied to it. It is a migrant. 



The Humming-Birds (Trocldlida) exhibit in regard to the numerous 

 plants of tropical America the same intimate relation which exists 



between our native butterflies and many flowers 

 with long calyces, performing for them, in return 

 for the food supplied by the flower, the important 

 service of pollination. Poised in front of the 

 flower, like the hawk-moths among insects, the 

 birds with their long, tubular and protrusible 

 tongue, suck the nectar from the cavity ; the tip of 

 the tongue, moreover, being covered with a viscid 

 saliva, at the same time attaches to itself all kinds 

 of minute insects. (Compare with the wood- 

 pecker.) The form and length of the beak, which 

 is likewise tubular, varies in each particular species 

 according to the shape and depth of the flower 

 which supplies its special food. Honey and small 

 insects, however, do not constitute a very satisfying 

 diet. Accordingly, the humming-birds are crea- 

 tures of small size, the smallest about as large as 

 a humble bee, the largest not exceeding the size of 

 a swallow, and are at the same time the most rapid flyers of all winged 

 creatures. (They have long pointed wings; compare with swallow.) 

 Their life being absolutely dependent on flowers, their habitat is restricted 

 to regions where there is no cessation in the growth of flowering plants. 



