LEAST HUMMING-BIRD. 



small gloss of a gold-green colour, which strikes 

 not the eye in common lights : the under side of 

 the head, neck, and belly are of a dirty white: the 

 outside feathers of the tail are also white: the legs 

 and feet are black : the bird, when dried, weighed 

 no more than five grains. I take it to be the 

 same with the Smallest Humming-Bird of Sir 

 Hans Sloane's History of Jamaica, vol. 2. p. 307> 

 where he says it weighed not over twenty grains 

 when just killed." 



The above specimen, from Edwards's description 

 of the colours, appears to have been a female. 

 The figure engraved in Sloane's Jamaica is repre- 

 sented by far too large for the bird, and is other- 

 wise so ill executed as to be unworthy of quo- 

 tation. The figure given in Brisson's Ornithology, 

 and repeated in the Planches Enluminees of 

 Buffon agrees in size with that of Edwards. Those 

 represented in the work of Monsr. Viellot are a 

 trifle larger, or at least longer, measuring about an 

 inch and five eighths in length, and were brought 

 from America by Dufresne. The gold-green of 

 the upper parts is more brilliant in these figures 

 than the general tenor of descriptions would lead 

 us to suppose ; but in these birds, as in all others, 

 considerable diversity as to the colour of the plu- 

 mage must be expected to take place in indi- 

 viduals of different ages, and in different degrees 

 of perfection. A pair of this species in the Bri- 

 tish Museum are of a brownish green above, with 

 but a slight appearance of a gilded lustre. They 

 are reported however to have belonged to the col- 



