the same business-like industry and application. In the winter, the abundance of other flowers and the 

 paucity of vervain-blossoms induce its attentions to the hedgerows and woods. 



" I have sometimes watched, with much delight, the evolutions of this little species at a moringa-tree. 

 When only one is present, he pursues the round of the blossoms soberly enough, sucking as he goes, and 

 uow and anon sitting quietly on the twig. But if two are about the tree, one will fly ofl^", and suspending 

 himself in the air a few yards distant, the other presently shoots oif to him, and then, without touching each 

 other, they mount upward with a strong rushing of wings, perhaps for five hundred feet ; they then separate, 

 and each shoots diagonally towards the ground, like a ball from a rifle, and wheeling round, comes up to 

 the blossoms again, and sacks, and sucks, as if it had not moved away at all. Frequently one alone will 

 mount in this manner, or dart on invisible wing diagonally upward, looking exactly like a humble-bee. 

 Indeed the figure of the smaller Humming-Birds on the wing, their rapidity, their arrowy course, and their 

 whole manner of flight are entirely those of an insect ; and one who has watched the flight of a large beetle 

 or bee, will have a very good idea of one of these tropic gems painted against the sky. I have observed all 

 the three Jamaican species engaged in sucking the blossoms of a moringa-tree, and have noticed that, 

 whereas Polytmus and Mango expand and depress the tail, when hovering before flowers, the Immilis, on the 

 contrary, for the most part erects the tail, but not invariably. 



"The present is the only Humming-Bird which I am acquainted with that has a real song. Soon after 

 sunrise in the spring months, it is fond of sitting on the topmost twig of a mango or orange tree, where it 

 warbles, in a very weak but very sweet tone, a continuous melody for ten mmutes at a time : it has little 

 variety. The others have only a pertinacious chirping. 



" The small bushes of Lanta?ia, so common by roadsides, and always covered with orange and yelloAv 

 blossom, are favourite situations for the domestic economy of this minute bird. The smooth twigs of the 

 bamboo also are not unfrequently chosen. It is not an uncommon thing in Jamaica for a road up a moun- 

 tain to be cut in zigzag terraces to diminish the steepness ; and to prevent the lower side of such a road 

 from crumbling away, stems of green bamboo are cut and laid in a shallow trench along the edge. Shoots 

 spring from every joint, and soon a close row of palisades are growing along the margin of the road, the 

 roots of which, as they spread, eflfectually bhid together the mountain-side, and make the terrace perpetual; 

 while, as they increase in height and thickness, they throw their gracefully waving tufts over the way, like 

 gigantic ostrich plumes, aflfoixling a most refreshing screen from the heat. Such a bamboo-walk, as it is 

 called, winds up the side of Grand Vale Mountain in St. Elizabeth's, and here the nests of the Vervain 

 Humming-Bird are frequently met with. Being up this road, on a day in June, I found two nests attached 

 to twigs of bamboo, and one just commenced. Two parallel twigs were connected together by spiders' 

 webs, profusely but irregularly stretched across, and these held a layer of silk-cotton, which just filled up 

 the space, about an inch square, between them. The others were complete cups of silk cotton exceedingly 

 compact and neat, ornamented outside with bits of grey lichen stuck here and there. In neither of the 

 other Jamaican species is the oscillation of the wings so rapid or so great in extent ; and hence with this 

 bird alone does the sound produced by the vibration of the wings acquire the sharpness of an insect's hum. 

 The noise produced by the hovering of a Polytmus is a whirring sound, exactly like that caused by a wheel 

 put into rapid revolution by machinery; that oi humilis is a hum, hke that of a large bee. 



" The spirit of curiosity is manifested by this little bird as well as by the larger species. When struck 

 at it will return in a moment, and peep into the net or hover just in one's face. The stories told of 

 Humming-Blrds attacking men, and striking at the eyes with their needle-like bills, originated, I have no 

 doubt, in the exaggercition of fear misinterpreting this innocent curiosity." 



M. Lesson remarks, that this species is certainly the smallest member of the family with which we are 

 acquainted, and is without doubt the ''very little Humming-Bird" of travellers; that it is a native of St. 

 Domingo, where it sometimes places its nest upon the branches, at others in the fork of a branch ; the 

 exterior is covered with lichens, while the interior is woven of the cotton of the Bomhaoo cieha :, occasionally 

 the filaments are interlaced among long spines, which gives to the delicate nest a solidity and firmness not 

 otherwise attainable. The incubation of its two eggs occupies twelve days ; the young emerge on the 

 thirteenth, and remain in the nest for seventeen or eighteen days. The tree which the bird mostly 

 frequents i§ the Cytims cajau, Linn. 



The male has the head, upper surface of the body, wlng-coverts, upper tail-coverts and flanks dark 

 shining green ; wings purplish brown ; tall deep black ; chin and throat white speckled with black ; breast 

 white ; abdomen whitish, each feather tipped with green ; vent white ; under tail-coverts white, faintly 

 tipped with green ; irides, bill and feet black. 



In the female the green of the upper surface is of yellower tint, and extends halfway down the central 

 tail-feathers ; the whole of the under surface is pure white, and the lateral tall-feathers are largely tipped 

 with white. 



The Plate represents a male, a female, and a nest with two eggs, all of the natural size. 



