SUN-BIRDS. 
63 
of the East, which are ethereal, gay, and sprightly in their 
motions, flitting briskly from flower to flower, and assuming 
a thousand lively and agreeable attitudes. As the sunbeams 
glitter on their bodies, they sparkle like so many precious 
stones, and exhibit as they turn a variety of bright and iri- 
descent hues. As they hover round the honey-laden blos- 
soms, they vibrate rapidly their tiny pinions, producing in 
the air a slight whirring sound, but not so loud as the 
humming noise produced by the wings of the Trochilida, 
Occasionally, I have seen them cling by their feet and tail, 
busily engaged in rifling of their insects and nectar the 
blossoms of the trees; in the stomachs of many which I 
examined were the partially -digested remains of dipterous, 
coleopterous, and tetrapterous insects. . . , I well remember 
a certain dark-leaved tree, with scarlet tubular flowers, that 
especially courted the attention of the sun-birds, and about 
its blossoms they continually darted with eager and viva- 
cious movements. . . . The sun-birds seemed particularly 
delighted, clinging to the slender twigs, and coquetting with 
the flowers, thrusting in their slender beaks, and probing 
with their brush-like tongues for insects and nectar, hang- 
ing suspended by their feet, throwing back their little glossy 
heads, chasing each other on giddy wing, and flirting and 
