424 EXPLANATORY INDEX. 



uncertainty, but has been definitively settled by Waterton 

 and other practical naturalists who came after him. 



" Neither the monkey nor the humming bird, on account of 

 the formation of the feet in this, and of the hands in that, 

 can labour on the ground for their food. Yet, when they are 

 in the right region to acquire it, there is a visible difference 

 in their mode of proceeding. Thus, the monkey sits on the 

 branch, and in that position supplies its wants with what 

 the tree produces. But the humming-bird must be on the 

 wing whilst it extracts food from the flowers, and never can 

 it possibly be seen to take nourishment whilst perching on 

 a twig. 



" This rule is absolute for the humming-bird, 



" The vault of heaven offers a large supply of food to these 

 birds. It is interesting to see how they satisfy the calls of 

 hunger, by invading the columns of insects which frequent 

 the circumambient atmosphere. Darting from the shade with 

 the rapidity of a meteor, the humming-bird stops short at the 

 column, and then, apparently motionless, it regales itself, and 

 then departs as swiftly as it had approached. 



"Authors are divided as to the exact kind of food which 

 humming-birds require. In all the species which I have in- 

 spected (and I have inspected not a few) I have found insects, 

 or fragments of insects, in the oesophagus ; and occasionally, 

 by applying my tongue to the contents of the stomach, I have 

 experienced a sweet taste, as though of sugar and water. Still, 

 were I asked if I considered that the nectar in flowers consti- 

 tuted the principal food of humming-birds, I should answer 

 in the negative. Insects form their principal food. The 

 robust frames of these birds seem to require something more 

 solid to support life than the nectareous dew abstracted from 

 flowers; and I don't exactly see, if these- birds do principally 

 exist on this kind of nutriment, how it is that they continue 

 to keep it pure in their own hot stomachs ; and then, by a 

 process unknown to us, convey it to the stomachs of their 

 gaping little ones." 



