28 HISTORY OF THE HUMMING BIRD. 



The Indian could appreciate their loveliness delighting to 

 adorn his bride with gems and jewelry plucked from the* 

 starry frontlets of these beauteous forms. Every epithet 

 which the ingenuity of language could invent, has been 

 employed to depict the richness of their coloring : the lustre 

 of the topaz, of emeralds, and rubies, have been compared 

 with them, and applied in their names. But now let us 

 enquire, whether an exterior of " gorgeous plumary" is all 

 which they possess, and if there is no beautiful adaptation 

 of structure to supply the wants of so frail a tenement. 



The humming-birds, or what are known by the genus 

 Trochilus of Linnaeus, have lately received vast additions 

 to the number of their species ; although forming a large 

 and closely-connected group, they exhibit a great variety 

 of forms and characters, which are not easily compre- 

 hended in the old two-fold division. They have been, 

 accordingly, divided by modern ornithologists into various 

 sections and genera, which will be detailed in a part of 

 our work especially devoted to their classical arrange- 

 ment. 



We previously mentioned that these birds were nearly 

 confined to the tropical portions of this country; and 

 according to our best information, that great archipelago of 

 islands between Florida and the mouth of the Orinoco, 

 with the mainland of the Southern continent until it passes 

 the Tropic of Capricorn, literally swarms with them. In 

 the wild and uncultivated parts, they inhabit those forests 

 of magnificent timber, overhung with lianas and the superb 

 tribe of bignonaceae, the huge trunks clothed with a rich 

 drapery of parasites, whose blossoms only give way in 

 beauty to the sparkling tints of their airy tenants; but 

 since the cultivation of various parts of the country, they 

 abound in the gardens and seem to delight in society, 

 becoming familiar and destitute of fear, hovering over one 

 side of a shrub, while the fruit or flowers are plucked from 



