66 
POPULAR HISTORY OF BIRDS. 
"Well may the poet ask, 
" Art thou a bird, or bee, or butterfly ?" 
and no less fitly might the answer be, 
" Each and aU. three ; — a bird in shape am I, 
A bee collecting sweets from bloom to bloom, 
A butterfly in brilliancy of plume*." 
The whole structure of these birds is adapted for flight : 
their feet are very small_, their tail is large, their wings are 
very long and narrow, while the sternum is very large, and 
has no notch on its posterior margin ; in most of these re- 
spects resembling the swifts, birds which they nearly ap- 
proach in power of wing. 
At one time it was supposed that these slender-beaked 
feathered gems fed exclusively on the honey of flowers. 
Although they are fond of the nectar of flowers, and in 
captivity delight in sugar, yet a great portion of their food 
would seem to consist of insects, which take refuge in the long 
tubes and other recesses of flowers. On opening the stomachs 
of humming-birds, insects are met with, and sometimes there 
are considerable numbers of them. Mr. Gosse has seen the 
long-tailed Humming-bird of Jamaica {TrocJiihis polytmus) 
catch insects on the .wing. He says : I was fully convinced 
* James Montgomery, Poetical Works, iv. 135. 
