HUMMING-13IEDS. 491 



The Colibri of Cuvier may be divided into Humming-birds 

 {Trockilidce), or species having the beak straight, and true Colibri, 

 having the beak curved. With this slight difference, the Trochilidcs 

 and Colibri closely resemble each other. They have the same 

 slight, elegant figure, the same brilliancy of plumage, and the 

 same habits — describe the one, and you describe the other. We 

 must be permitted, therefore, to treat of them together. 



The HuMMiNG-BiKDs (Troehilidm) are the most lovely of the 

 winged race. Nature seems to have endowed them with her rarest 

 gifts. In creating them she surpassed herself, and exhausted all 

 the charms at her disposal ; for she imbued them with grace, 

 elegance, rapidity of motion, magnificence of plumage, and indo- 

 mitable courage. What can be more delightful than the sight 

 of these little feathered beauties, flashing with the united fires 

 of the ruby, the topaz, the sapphire, and the emerald, flying 

 from flower to flower amid the richest tropical vegetation ? Such 

 are the lightness and rapidity of some of the smaller species, that 

 the eye can scarcely follow the quick beat of the wings. When 

 they hover they seem perfectly motionless, and one might fancy 

 they were suspended by some invisible thread. 



Specially adapted for an aerial life, they are unceasingly in 

 motion, searching for their food in the calyx of flowers, from 

 which they drink the nectar with so much delicacy and address 

 that the plant is scarcely stirred. But the juice and honey of 

 flowers, as some authors affirm, are not their only food — such un- 

 substantial diet would be insufficient to sustain the prodigious 

 activity displayed almost every moment of their existence. 



The tongue of the Humming-bird is a microscopic instrument 

 of marvellous arrangement. It is composed of two half-tubes 

 placed one against the other, capable of opening and shutting like 

 a pair of pliers. Moreover, it is constantly moistened by a glu- 

 tinous saliva, by which it is enabled to seize and hold insects 

 — an arrangement not without its analogy in the Woodpeckers. 



Proud of their gay colours, the Humming-birds take the greatest 

 care to protect their plumage. They frequently dress themselves 

 by passing their feathers through their bills. Their vivacity 

 often amounts to petulance, and they frequently manifest belK- 

 gerent propensities not to be 'expected in such minute creatiires. 



