98 
THE " TOM THUMB " OF THE BIRD WORLD. 
uniform interwoven stuff, not unlike brown tanned leather, and without 
any lining. Others are furnished with a lining as delicate and soft as 
the finest down. Some are attached to the tip of a pendent leaf by 
means of innumerable threads of spiders' web. Others are perched on 
the upper part of a horizontal branch, and so encrusted with the lichen 
found on the tree that the nest can hardly be distinguished. Neither 
saliva, glue, nor any viscous substance, is used by the tiny architect. 
Both Asia and Africa possess minute birds of dazzling colouring; 
but the reader should notice that the legs of these are of sufficient 
length to enable them to walk on the ground. The leofs of the 
humming-bird, however, as already stated, are not available for 
" ambulatory purposes." On this point Mr. Waterton remarks that 
there is a proportional length of leg in all the small birds of the 
Old World, useful when on the ground ; but that, for want of this 
proportional length of leg in the humming-birds of the New World, 
the legs become useless when accident has brought down the bird 
from his aerial domain. 
It remains to be added that all the humming-birds exhibit the 
same form of wings (with a slight variation in some of the primary 
feathers), legs, and feet, but that the bills in certain species difier 
slightly ; in some it is short and quite straight, in others it is curved 
downwards like a cobbler's awl. Whether they sing or not is doubful; 
but they certainly chirp. Mr. Gosse, however, says of the little 
humming-bird, the "Tom Thumb" of the family, that he has a real 
song. His description of this species is interesting: — "I have some- 
times," he says, " watched with great delight the evolutions of this little 
species at a moringa-tree. When only one is present, he pursues the 
round of the blossoms soberly enough, sucking as he goes, and every 
now and then sitting quietly on a twig. But if two are about the 
tree, one will fly off, and suspending himself in the air a few yards 
distant, the other presently shoots off to him; and then, without touch- 
ing each other, they mount upwards, with a strong rushing of wings, 
perhaps for five hundred feet. They then separate, and each shoots 
diagonally towards the ground, like a ball from a rifle, and wheeling 
round, comes up to the blossoms again, and sucks and sucks as if he 
