290 VERTEBRATA. AVES. 



Then through our woodbines, wet with glittering dews, 

 The flower-fed humming bird his round pursues ; 

 Sips, with inserted tube, the honey'd blooms, 

 And chirps his gratitude, as round he roams ; 

 While richest roses, though in crimson drest, 

 Shrink from the splendour of his gorgeous breast : 

 What heavenly tints in mingling radiance fly ! 

 Each rapid movement gives a different dye ; 

 Like scales of burnish M gold they dazzling show, 

 Now sink to shade, now like a furnace glow."* 



We cannot pause to notice the Hoopoes, (Upupa^) 

 nor the splendid birds belonging to the genera Epi- 

 maclms\ and Ptiloris, which form the connecting 

 link between the Tenuirostres and the Birds of 

 Paradise : to these they bear so strong a resem- 

 blance, especially in their long shaft-feathers, and 

 metallic tints, as to have been formerly placed in 

 the same genus. 



FAM. IV. FISSIROSTRES.|| 



THIS is a small, yet a natural and strongly marked 

 division, consisting of two great genera, the Night- 

 jars and the Swallows. The beak is broad at the 

 base, short, hooked at the tips, and opening with a 

 very wide gape. They feed on insects on the wing, 

 being the most expert of fly-catchers, to capture 

 which they are endowed with great power and velo- 

 city of flight. 



* Am. Orn , vol. ii. p. 209. *f* The ancient Latin name. 



i 'ET/^ax> epimacltos, quarrelsome. 

 TlriXov, ptilcn, a feather. || /?*, cleft, and rostrum, a beak. 



