318 TROPICAL NATURE Iv 
sweets, in all the energy of life, it seemed like a breathing 
gem, a magic carbuncle of flaming fire, stretching out its 
glorious ruff as if to emulate the sun itself in splendour.” 
The Sappho Comet, whose long forked tail barred with 
crimson and black renders it one of the most imposing of 
humming-birds, is abundant in many parts of the Andes; 
and Mr. Bonelli tells us that the difficulty of shooting them 
is very great from the extraordinary turns and evolutions 
they make when on the wing; at one instant darting head- 
long into a flower, at the next describing a circle in the air 
with such rapidity that the eye, unable to follow the move- 
ment, loses sight of the bird until it again returns to the 
flower which at first attracted its attention. Of the little 
Vervain humming-bird of Jamaica, Mr. Gosse writes: “I 
have sometimes watched with much delight the evolutions of 
this little species at the Moringa-tree.1 When only one is 
present, he pursues the round of the blossoms soberly enough. 
But if two are at the tree, one will fly off, and suspend 
himself in the air a few yards distant; the other presently 
starts off to him, and then, without touching each other, they 
mount upwards with strong rushing wings, perhaps for five 
hundred feet. They then separate, and each starts diagonally 
towards the ground like a ball from a rifle, and, wheeling 
round, comes up to the blossoms again as if it had not moved 
away at all. The figure of the smaller humming-birds on the 
wing, their rapidity, their wavering course, and their whole 
manner of flight, are entirely those of an insect.” Mr. Bates 
remarks that on the Amazons, during the cooler hours of the 
morning and from four to six in the afternoon, humming- 
birds are to be seen whirring about the trees by scores ; their 
motions being unlike those of any other birds. They dart to 
and fro so swiftly that the eye can scarcely follow them, and 
when they stop before a flower it is only for a few moments. 
They poise themselves in an unsteady manner, their wings 
moving with inconceivable rapidity, probe the flower, and 
then shoot off to another part of the tree. They do not 
proceed in that methodical manner which bees follow, taking 
1 Sometimes called the horse-radish tree. It is the Moringa pterygosperma, 
a native of the East Indies, but commonly cultivated in Jamaica. It has 
yellow flowers, 
