8436 - Notices of New Books. 



necessary to go farther I cannot see that Mr. Gould has brought out 

 the strongest points of difference between humming birds and swifts, 

 although he very evidently desires to do so. Let us investigate these 

 matters. 



The " most ample wings and vast powers of flight" Mr. Gould con- 

 siders as supporting the view that the humming birds and swifts are 

 closely allied. I cannot regard these characters of the slightest value, 

 otherwise the affinity will extend with equal force to the vultures, the 

 terns, the albatross and the frigate bird. The experimentum cruets is 

 this, How are the wings used ? What says Mr. Gould on the subject ? 

 The motion of the wings of humming birds is so " rapidly performed 

 that it is impossible for the eye to follow each stroke, and a hazy 

 semicircle of indistinctness on each side of the bird is all that is per- 

 ceptible." Now I cannot describe in language so graphic as Mr. 

 Gould's the mode in which the swallow tribes use their wings ; if I 

 could the contrast would be more striking perhaps than any to be 

 found throughout the feathered world. Indeed there is no similarity 

 between the wings of humming birds and swifts, except such as is 

 common to other birds, and in the use of the wings the contrast is the 

 most violent that can be imagined. 



Coming to Mr. Gould's second suggestion, that of constituting the 

 humming birds a separate order, in what do these nectar-drinkers, 

 honey -imbibers, sun-loving, Sphinx-like fairy birds of the New World 

 differ from those of the Old World ; I mean the Nectarinidae. There 

 is a difference, indeed there are differences, but incomparably less 

 important than those which separate the hummingbirds from the swifts; 

 the nectar-drinkers of the New World, regarded collectively, have the 

 feet small and the tarsi short, while those of the Old World have feet 

 and tarsi and toes of moderate size, much as in the Sylviadae ; and 

 the mode of flight differs in the two groups, that in the Nectarinidae 

 being much after the weak and^ ill-sustained manner of the other 

 passerine groups ; and in no instance with which I am acquainted does 

 the sun-bird of the Old World quaff the nectar of flowers while hovering 

 on the wing. Many years ago I could have ridiculed, as Mr. Gould 

 does now, the idea of making the humming bird an inhabitant of both 

 worlds, but now that these nectar-drinkers have gradually become less 

 unfamiliar I have learned to regard with far greater leniency the fre- 

 quently-repeated assertions of travellers that they have seen humming 

 birds on the coast of Africa and among the delightful spurs of the 

 Himalayas. These assertions, though not rigidly in accordance with 

 scientific fact, arcyieveithelejss so nearly true that they establish beyond 



