HUMMING-BIRDS. 



25 



through the air overhead in a curious undulating kind of flight. I afterwards heard 

 the same sound produced by males of the same species (the broad-tailed humming- 

 bird) when they were driving other birds away from the vicinity of their nests. 

 At such times they would ascend almost perpendicularly to a considerable height, 

 and then descend with the quickness of a flash at the object of their animosity, 

 which was, perhaps, more frightened or annoyed at the accompanying noise than 

 by the attack itself. Mr. F. Stephens calls this the " courtship-song," but from the 

 circumstance that, in the broad-tailed humming-bird at least, it is often produced 

 by solitary individuals while wending their way between distant points, I hardly 

 think that it can be so considered. Mr. Stephens writes of Costa's humming-bird 

 that " the female is sitting on a twig in a low bush, not on an exposed twig, as is 

 often the case when she is merely resting ; but when the male begins she goes 

 farther in, as if she feared that he really intended mischief, while he rises high in 

 the air, and with a headlong swoop comes down, passing her, and, turning with a 

 sharp curve as near her as possible, mounts on high, to repeat the manoeuvre 

 again and again. A shrill whistle is heard as he begins to descend, starting low 

 and becoming louder and louder, until, as he passes her, it becomes a shriek, which 

 is plainly audible for a distance of a hundred yards or more. As he mounts 

 again it dies away, only to be repeated at the next descent. This is a common 

 manoeuvre with the species, the whistle made during the descent being quite low." 

 The nests are tiny little structures, generally made of moss, and covered 

 externally with lichens, which cause them to resemble the surroundings in which 

 they are placed. The eggs are two in number, white, and oval at both ends. 



Humming-birds are divided into three sections, the characters for which are 

 not very trenchantly marked, the fact being that these birds form a very homo- 

 geneous group, and thus do not lend themselves to any easily recognisable scheme 

 of classification. The number of species described is nearly five hundred, these 

 being divided into one hundred and twenty-seven genera. In these genera every 

 possible variation of form is perceptible, from the longest bill to the tiniest bill, 

 the simplest form of tail to the most elaborate of structures, while the metallic 

 plumage, so characteristic of the humming-birds in general, is absent in not a few 

 of the genera, and the colour of the simplest kind. 



Saw-Beaked The members of this section, as its name implies, are characterised 



Group. ]3y ^he serrated cutting-edges of the fore-part of the upper mandible ; 

 the corresponding portion of the lower jaw being in some instances similarly 

 notched. The group comprises upwards of five-and-tweuty genera, the members of 

 which differ infinitely among themselves as regards form and colour. The sole 

 representative of its genus, the long-tailed Jamaican humming-bird {jEtliurus 

 polytimus), may be easily recognised by the abnormal conformation of the tail, 

 in which the outermost feather but one on each side is produced to an enormous 

 length. An inhabitant of the island from which it takes its name, its habits have 

 been admirably described by Gosse in the following words : — " The long-tail is a 

 permanent resident in Jamaica, and is not uncommonly seen at all seasons and in 

 all situations. It loves to frequent the margins of woods and roadsides, where it 

 sucks the blossoms of the trees, occasionally descending, however, to the low shrubs. 

 There is one locality where it is abundant, the summit of that range of mountains 



