128 THE HUMMING-BIRD. 



asked, if I considered, that the nectar in flowers, 

 constituted the principal food of humming-birds, 

 I should answer in the negative. Insects form 

 their principal food. , 



The robust frame of these birds, seems to 

 require something more solid to support life, than 

 the nectarious dew abstracted from flowers; and 

 I don't exactly see, if these birds, do principally 

 exist on this kind of nutriment, how it is, that 

 they continue to keep it pure in their own hot 

 stomachs; and then, by a process, unknown to 

 us, convey it to the stomachs of their gaping little 

 ones But, the schoolmaster has left his closet 

 and gone abroad. Perhaps he will clear away a 

 good part of the mist, which still envelopes this 

 ornithological section of natural history. Let us 

 hope for the best. 



Within the tropics, we find nearly the whole of 

 the numerous family of humming-birds. 



The supreme ruler of the universe, who has per- 

 emptorily ordered the sun never to transgress the 

 boundary marked out for its annual course, in the 

 everlasting highway of the flaming zodiac, has 

 equally insisted, that these lovely little birds, with 

 here and there an exception, should keep in the 

 same track with the glorious luminary himself. 



Those exceptions which wander farther on into 



