TUOCUIUD.E — THE IIUMMING-IJIRDS. 437 



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Family TROCHIUD^. — The Hummlng-Birds. 



Char. Least of all birds ; sternum very deep ; bill subulate, and generally longer than 

 the head, straight, arched, or upcurved. Tongue eoniposed of two lengthened cylindrieal 

 united tubes, capable of great protrusion, and bilid at tip; nostrils bjv^al, linear, and 

 covered by an operculum ; wings lengthened, pointed ; first (piill usually longest except 

 in ^•l»7/iu/v/.s, where it is the seeoud ; primaries, 10 ; secondaries, ; tail of ten feathers. 

 Tarsi and feet very diminutive, claws very sharp. (Gould.) 



There is no grou]) of birds so interesting to the ornithologist or to the 

 casual observer as the Hiiniining-Birds, at once the smallest in size, the most 

 gorgeously beautiful in color, and almost the most abundant in species, of 

 any single family of birds. They are strictly confined to the continent and 

 islands of America, and are most abundant in the Central American and 

 Andean States, though single species range almost to the Arctic regions on 

 the north and to Patagonia on the south, as well as from the sea-coast to 

 the frozen summits of the Andes. Many are very limited in their range ; 

 some confined to particular islands, even though of small dimensions, or to 

 the summits of certain mountain-peaks. 



The bill of the Humming-Bird is awl-shaped or subulate ; thin, and sharp- 

 pointed ; straight or curved ; sometimes as long as the licad, sometimes 

 much longer. The mandibles are excavated to the tip for the lodgement of 

 the tongue, and form a tube by the close apposition of their cutting edges. 

 There is no indication of stiff bristly feathers at the base of tlie mouth. 

 The tongue has some resemblance to that of the Woodpecker in the elonga- 

 tion of the coinua backwards, so as to pass round the back of the skidl, and 

 then anteriorly to the base of the bill. The tongue itself is of very i)eculiar 

 structure, consisting anteriorly of two hollow threads closed at the ends and 

 united behind. The food of the Humming- Bird consists almost entirely of 

 insects, which are captured by protruding the tongue in flowers of various 

 shapes without opening the bill very wide. 



The genera of Humming-Birds are very difficult to define. This is partly 

 owing to the great number of the species, of which nearly four hundred and 

 fifty have been recognized by authors, all of them with but few exceptions 

 diminutive in size and almost requiring a lens for their critical examination, 

 so that characters for generic separation, distinct enough in other families, are 

 here overlookeil or not fully appreciated. A still greater difliiculty, perhaps, is 

 the great difference in form, especially of the tail, between the male and female, 

 the young male occupying an intermediiite position. Tlie coloration, too, is 

 almost always very different witli sex and age, and usually any generic 

 characters derived from features other than those of bill, feet, and wing do 

 not apply to the females at all. 



In the large number of species of Humming-Birds arninged in about one 



