42 6 CORACIIFORMES 



of cottony down and feathers to the leaves or spathes of palms 

 with their saliva, but also breed on native huts. 



Fossils referred to Cypsdus and Collocalia occur in the Lower 

 Miocene of France, while Aegialornis of the Eocene (p. 315) is 

 placed here by M. Milne-Edwards and re-named Tachyornis. 



Fam. XII. The Trochilidae, or Humming-birds, so called from 

 the sound often made by the vibrating wings, are New World 

 forms noted for their grace and beauty. The English name 

 dates back to at least 1632, while one species from Hispaniola 

 is mentioned as " paxaro mosquito " by Oviedo in his Hystoria 

 general cle las Indicts, as early as 1525. This appellation still 

 remains as the French " Oiseau-mouche," that of Trochilus having 

 been borrowed from Pliny by Barrere, who believed Humming- 

 birds to be allied to the Wren, the Trochihis in part of the 

 Latin author. Tpo'^^IXo';, however, was applied by the Greeks to 

 the smaller Plovers (p. 295), and apparently 6p'x^iXo<; to the Wren, 

 so that Pliny or his copyists originated a chain of errors. From 

 native sources we have the names Guainumbi, Ourissia, and Colibri, 

 from the Spanish " Picaflor " and Tominejo (atom) ; from Mexico 

 " Chupa-rosa " and " Chupa-myrta " (Eose-sucker and Myrtle- 

 sucker) ; from the West Indies '' Murmures " and " Bourdons." ^ 



The sternum is enormously developed both in length and 

 depth of keel, thus furnishing a wide base for the attachment of 

 the particularly strong wing-muscles, which support the untiring 

 flight. Herein Humming-birds resemble Swifts, but the head is 

 much more compressed, and the bill is slender and elongated, 

 except in nestlings ; they are in fact the longest billed members of 

 the Class Aves in proportion to their size, which in this Family 

 reaches the minimum. Both mandibles may be serrated, and the 

 maxilla is hooked in Androdon and Rhanipliodon ; but for details 

 of the variable beak, remiges and rectrices, reference must be made 

 to the species described below. The metatarsus, feathered in such 

 genera as Eriocnemis and Loddigesia, is short ; the toes being 

 usually diminutive, but sometimes stronger, and the claws either 

 small and rounded, or elongated, curved, and sharp. The ten pri- 

 maries, of which the outermost is the longest, except in Aithurus 

 — where it is shorter than the next — are frequently rigid ; in 

 the male " Sabre- wings " (p. 435) the shafts of two or three are 

 extraordinarily dilated and curved ; while the tenth is occasionally 



' For a fuller aooount, see A. Newton, Diet. Birds, 1893, pp. 440-451. 



