92 
HUMMING-BIRDS. 
them conspicuous from afar. This external beauty is, however, their 
sole attraction; "Ce sont des creatures silencieuses et ennuyeuses" says 
a French naturalist. They live chiefly on berries and sugary or fecu- 
lent fruits, with an occasional dish of insects. Their favourite haunts 
are the trees and bushes of the forest; but sometimes they swoop down 
en masse upon plantations, accomplishing no little mischief 
Two principal Brazilian species are the Rhamphoccelus jacapa and 
the Tanagra episcopus. The females, in both cases, are dull of colour; 
but the male jacapa shines resplendent in a beautiful velvety purple 
and black plumage, while the male episcopus is as gay as a court page, 
in suit of pale blue, with silver-spotted wings. In South America they 
seem to fill the place of the common house-sparrow in Europe, being 
just as restless, bold, wary, vivacious. Their notes, too, are very 
similar, being chirping and inharmonious. These differ from many 
other species in their proneness to frequent the neighbourhood of man. 
The scarlet and black tanager, Rampliocoelus nigrogularis, is one 
of the handsomest of the tribe. In the valley of the Lower Amazon 
flocks may be seen disporting about the trees on the edge of the water, 
— their flame-coloured liveries illuminating the masses of dark-green 
foliage. 
In the matter of beauty, however, all the Western birds must give 
way to the humming-birds, which, as they flash through the air like 
bits of rainbow, or anything else that is at once brilliant and tender, 
dazzling and graceful, inspire the spectator with a boundless sense of 
admiration. It is true that this admiration ma}' partl}^ originate in 
the circumstances under which the humming-birds are seen, — the 
dense leafy shades of the suiTounding forest, with its varied forms and 
colours; the bland warm tropical air; the golden glow of the tropical 
sunshine ; the presence everywhere of the novel and unaccustomed ; — 
but still they have a special and transcendent beauty of their own, 
which would be recognized always and everywhere. They move us 
to wonder when we see them rigid and embalmed in the numbered 
compartments and on the labelled shelves of a zoological collection ; 
what, then, would be our sentiments if we saw them in all tlie Hush of 
