HUMMING-BIRDS. 45 
this is the most beautiful, the most minute. Depend- 
ing upon no single feature for attraction, — upon no 
one plume or tuft of feathers, like the bird of para- 
dise, upon no broad-spread, glaring colors, like the 
parrot, —it is, in fact, the gem of the feathered world. 
So often have poet and naturalist compared it, in the 
brilliance of its flashing colors, to the gems of the min- 
eral kingdom, that they have left little to be said, and 
I can but repeat that it is now a topaz, now an em- 
erald, a turquoise, or a ruby. 
East of the Mississippi and north of Florida there 
is but one species that can be called a regular visitor ; 
this is the well-known ruby-throated humming-bird of 
the North. As we go south we find them increasing, 
both in species and in number, until the region of 
greatest abundance is reached near the Equator. 
In Dominica, half-way down the Antilles, and six- 
teen degrees north of the Equator, I found four spe- 
cies to replace the single one visiting the North, the 
smallest of which were as large as the ruby-throat, 
and the largest two inches longer. 
This latter is called the garnet-throated hummer, 
and is five and one-half inches in length, and seven 
in stretch of wing. It is the most abundant, as well 
as the most beautiful, and loves the mountain valleys, 
where are gardens of plantains and fragrant flowers. 
Its bill and feet are black ; a brilliant gorget of garnet 
extends from beak to breast, each feather of which is 
semicircular, and of the deepest crimson with gold 
reflections. It should be seen poised in air hovering 
above a flower, or preening itself upon a dry branch, 
with the full blaze of a tropic sunshine glancing from 
its throat, for one to form an adequate conception of 
