GOATSUCKERS, HUMMING-BIRDS, ETC. 251 



outer diameter and one and one-fourth inches in depth. 

 "Their nesting sites may be looked for in low bushes, as 

 well as on the horizontal limbs of trees at various distances 

 from the ground." 



ALLEN'S HUMMING-BIRD* 



The Humming-birds, with their varied beauties, consti- 

 tute the most remarkable feature of the bird-life of Amer- 

 ica. They have absolutely no representatives in any other 

 part of the world, the swifts being the nearest relatives they 

 have in other countries. Mr. Forbes says that they abound 

 most in mountainous countries where the surface and pro- 

 ductions of the soil are most diversified within small areas. 

 They frequent both open and rare and inaccessible places, 

 and are often found on the snowy peaks of Chimborazo as 

 high as sixteen thousand feet, and in the very lowest valleys 

 in the primeval forests of Brazil. 



These birds are found as small as a bumblebee and as 

 large as a sparrow. The smallest is from Jamaica, the 

 largest from Patagonia. 



Allen's hummer is found on the Pacific Coast, north to 

 British Columbia, east to southern Arizona. 



Mr. Langills, in Our Birds in Their Haunts, beauti- 

 fully describes their flights and manner of feeding. He 

 says : " There are many birds the flight of which is so rapid 

 that the strokes of their wings cannot be counted, but here 

 is a species with such nerve of wing that its wing-strokes 

 cannot be seen. *A hazy semi-circle of indistinctness on each 

 side of the bird is all that is perceptible.' Poised in the air, 



