io8 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



brightly coloured. Their chromatic taste 

 seems to get quickened in their daily search 

 for food among the beautiful blossoms and 

 brilliant fruits of southern woodlands. Thus 

 the humming-birds, the sun-birds, and the 

 brush-tongued lories, three very dissimilar 

 groups of birds so far as descent is concerned, 

 all alike feed upon the honey and the insects 

 which they extract from the large tubular 

 bells of tropical flowers ; and all alike are 

 noticeable for their intense metallic lustre or 

 pure tones of colour. Again, the parrots, the 

 toucans, the birds of paradise, and many 

 other of the more beautiful exotic species, 

 are fruit-eaters, and reflect their inherited 

 tastes in their own gaudy plumage. But the 

 waders have no such special reasons for 

 acquiring a love for bright hues. Hence 

 their aesthetic feeling seems rather to have 

 taken a turn towards the further development 

 of their own graceful forms. Even the 

 plainest wading birds have a certain natural 

 elegance of shape which supplies a primitive 



