PASSERINiE. 
207 
The name Guit-guit is applied to certain small species, the males of which have vivid colours. Their tongue is 
bifid and filamentous. CertMa cyanea, Tern., and O. axrulea, Edwards, are American examples, to which we add 
some eastern species, most of which are red,— the Ccereha, Vieillot. 
We may separate, however, the largest and least handsome of them, wherein the tongue is short and cartila- 
ginous ; as the Merops rufus of Spix, which constructs a nest upon shrubs, arched over like an oven, and of which 
M. Temminck forms his genus Opetioi'hynchus, and M. Vieillot his Furnarius. The Figulus of Spix does 
not differ. 
Dictum, Cuv. 
The members of this group also do not climb, nor employ the tail : their arched and pointed beak, 
longer than the head, is depressed and widened at its base. 
They inhabit the East Indies, are very small, and have generally some scarlet on their plumage. 
In 
Melithreptus, Vieillot, — 
The tail is also not used, and the beak is extremely elongated, and curved almost to a semicircle. They 
inhabit the South-sea Islands. 
One species {CertMa vestiaria, Shaw) is covered with scarlet feathers, of whicn the natives of the Sandwich 
Isles manufacture the beautiful mantles of that colour, which are so highly prized. 
The Sun-birds {Cinnyris, Cuv.) — 
Do not lean on the tail ; the edges of their long and very slender beak are finely serrated ; the tongue, 
which is capable of protrusion, terminates in a little fork. They are small birds, the males of which 
have most brilliant metallic colours during the season of propagation, approaching the Humming- 
birds in beauty ; of which, in this respect, they are the representatives in the Eastern Continent, 
being found principally in Africa and the Indian Archipelago. They subsist on the nectar of flowers, 
which they suck up ; are of a lively disposition, and sing agreeably. Their beauty renders them a great 
ornament in oim cabinets ; but the garb of the female sex, and of the male in winter, is so different 
that the species are not easy to characterize. 
In some, the tail is even ; in others, its two middle feathers are elongated in the males ; and some are distin- 
guished by a straight beak, or nearly so. [In most of the true Cinnyrides, the lateral tuft of feathers, so enoi*- 
mously developed in the Birds of Paradise, exists, of small size]. 
The Spider-catchers {Arachnotheres, Tern.) — 
Have the same long, arcuated beak, as the Sun -birds, but stronger and not dentelated ; their tongue is 
short and cartilaginous, and the known species inhabit the Indian Archipelago, where they live on 
Spiders. 
After all these distinctions, there are still other birds that should be separated from the great genus 
CertMa, some of which are merely Philedons, with the characters of that genus more developed. 
The Humming-birds {TrocMlus, Lin.). 
These diminutive birds, so celebrated for the metallic lustre of their plumage, and particularly 
for the scale-like feathers, brilliant as gems, which offer a peculiar structure, have a long slender beak, 
inclosing a tongue capable of protrusion upon the same principle as that of the Woodpeckers, and which 
is split, almost to its base, into two filaments, employed, as is asserted, in sucking up the nectar of 
flowers. They also, however, feed on small insects, for we have found their stomach filled with them. 
Their very small feet, great tail, excessively elongated and narrow w'ings, and their very large sternum 
(fig. 95) without posterior emargination, combine to produce a 
mode of flight similar to that of the Swifts, besides which the Hum- 
ming-birds balance themselves in the air by a rapid motion of the 
wings, like many Flies. It is thus they hrm about flowering 
shrubs and plants, and fly more rapidly than any other bird. Their 
gizzard is very small, and they have no coeca, in which they ap- 
proximate the Woodpeckers. They live singly, defend their nests 
with courage [attacking, with their needle-like bills, the eyes of 
an intruder, which renders these minute creatures truly formida- 
ble], and fight with one another desperately. 
Fig. 95.— Sternnm of Humming-bird. 
