Hummingbirds and Swifts 553 



found a single egg, resting on a small depression caused by decay, and without 

 nest material of any sort. The egg was white with a few delicate violet spots 

 on the larger end and large, irregularly distributed, brownish rufous spots over 

 the remainder of the surface. 



This bird, known to the natives of Brazil as the Uratoa, is much connected 

 with Brazilian folk-lore on account of its mournful, wailing call, which is 

 a constant nocturnal sound at certain seasons of the year. It is rendered by 

 the syllables pu-hu-hu, slowly pronounced, but with energy, and as Dr. Goeldi 

 adds, " is quite enough to frighten a timid wanderer in the solitary forest patches." 

 In the island of Trinidad, according to an entertaining account given by Messrs. 

 Brewster and Chapman, this species is called Poor-me-one, its cry being "pos- 

 sessed of a human quality which appeals to one as strongly as the voice of a fellow- 

 being. Its tone is so sweet and tender, so expressive of hopeless sorrow, that 

 even the negroes are impressed by it, as its native name, Poor-me-one, meaning 

 'Poor me all alone,' clearly shows." It is easily attracted by imitating its 

 voice. Here, as in Jamaica and elsewhere, it has the habit of returning night 

 after night to some favorite vantage point such as a stump or fence post, making 

 short sallies for its food, which consists largely of beetles. 



THE HUMMINGBIRDS AND SWIFTS 



(Suborder Micropodii) 



The present suborder comprises but two families, the Trochilida, or Hum- 

 mingbirds, and the Micropodidce, or Swifts. 



THE HUMMINGBIRDS 



(Family Trochilidce) 



The Hummingbirds have been called, and appropriately so, the gems 

 of the feathered race, for of all the many groups into which birds are divided 

 there is none other so numerous in species, so varied in form, so 

 brilliant in plumage, and so different from all others in their mode of life. 

 "Glittering fragments of the rainbow, " as Audubon has called them, and 

 surely they are, for their little bodies fairly glow with brilliant metallic 

 crimson, emerald, violet, purple, blue, or golden green contrasted often with 

 satiny white or velvety black. They vie in coloring with the bright-hued 

 tropical flowers, among which they mostly make their homes, darting, like 

 flashes of light, from bush to bush and flower to flower, now hovering for 

 an instant over some bloom, then away with a speed that the eye fails to follow. 



The Hummingbirds of course take their name from the humming or buzzing 

 noise made by their rapidly moving wings, as they hang over a flower or dart 

 through the air. As by far the larger portion of their lives is spent on the wing, 



