HUMMING-BIRDS. 27 



this habit being probably induced by the shortness of its wings. The first specimen 

 seen was perched on a twig preening its feathers, and, for a few moments, the 

 observer was doubtful whether such a tiny creature could really be a bird. Another 

 he noticed bathing, and watched its movements for some time before shooting it. 

 " The little creature," he says, " would poise itself about three feet or so above the 

 surface of the water, and then, as quick as thought, would dart downwards, so as 

 to dip its head in the placid pool, then up again to its original position, quite as 

 quickly as it had descended. These movements of darting up and down, it would 

 repeat in rapid succession, which produced more than a moderate disturbance on 

 the surface of the water, for such a diminutive creature. After a considerable 

 number of dippings it alighted on a twig near at hand, and commenced pluming 

 its feathers." 



intermediate The forty-eight genera included under this section are character- 



Group. i sec [ by having the sheath of the upper mandible of the bill very 

 feebly serrated towards the end of the cutting-edge. As with the previous section, 

 all kinds of forms are included within its limits, from the lovely hill-stars 

 (Diplogena) to the duller-coloured amazilia. The hill-stars, which inhabit the 

 Andes from Ecuador to Bolivia, are remarkable for their brilliant crown-spots, and 

 are among the largest members of the family, extracting the nectar from flowers 

 in a leisurely manner. Stolzmann indeed relates that he has even seen them 

 perched on the dead branch of a tree, flying out into the air, after the manner 

 of a flycatcher. In this division are likewise included the lovely comets (Sappho), 

 with their long coppery or red tails and green throats; these birds extending 

 from the interior of Argentina to Chili, Bolivia, and Central Peru. 



Fork-Tailed Forming a genus known as Lesbia, these elegant birds are found 



Humming-Birds. j n ^ e Andes, from Colombia and Venezuela to Bolivia ; and are dark 

 green in colour, with a short bill, very nearly straight, while they are specially 

 distinguished by their very long, forked tails, in which the feathers are even 

 narrower than in the comets (Sappho). Mr. Stolzmann found one of the species 

 (L. gracilis) at the height of from seven thousand five hundred to ten thousand 

 feet on the Andes of Peru, where it was apparently migratory, as he noticed it to 

 be common at Tambillo in December and January, whereas in June not one was to 

 be seen. The same naturalist is the rediscoverer of the wonderful Loddigesia 

 (mentioned below) ; and he noticed that the fork-tailed species had a great antipathy 

 to the racket -tailed Loddigesia, which it w r as always driving away from the 

 flowers. Its voice is quite characteristic, a tsi-tsi-tsi, very loudly uttered, and in 

 a descending scale, and on visiting flowers it makes a sort of clapping noise, 

 like that produced by pigeons when striking their wings together over their 

 backs. 



Smooth-Beaked Although resembling the last in their variety of form and 

 Group. coloration, this group differs in the absence of serrations in the 

 cutting-edges of the beak. As our first representatives of the group may be 

 noticed the curved-billed hermits (Eutoxeres), of which there are four species, 

 all remarkable for the strong curvature of the beak, which describes fully one- 

 third of a circle. The plumage is dull, and devoid of metallic sheen ; while the 

 tail is rounded, with the extremities of the feathers pointed. In Peru one of these 



