320 
TROPICAL NATURE 
IV 
Display of Ornaments by the Male 
It is a well-known fact that when male birds possess any 
unusual ornaments, they take such positions or perform such 
evolutions as to exhibit them to the best advantage while 
endeavouring to attract or charm the females, or in rivalry 
with other males. It is therefore probable that the wonder- 
fully varied decorations of humming-birds, whether burnished 
breast - shields, resplendent tail, crested head, or glittering 
back, are thus exhibited ; but almost the only actual observa- 
tion of this kind is that of Mr. Belt, who describes how two 
males of the Florisuga mellivora displayed their ornaments 
before a female bird. One would shoot up like a rocket, 
then, suddenly expanding the snow-white tail like an inverted 
parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round 
gradually to show off both back and front. The expanded 
white tail covered more space than all the rest of the bird, 
and was evidently the grand feature of the performance. 
Whilst one was descending the other would shoot up and 
come slowly down expanded . 1 
Food 
The food of humming-birds has been a matter of much 
controversy. All the early writers, down to Buffon, believed 
that they lived solely on the nectar of flowers ; but since that 
time every close observer of their habits maintains that they 
feed largely, and in some cases wholly, on insects. Azara 
observed them on the La Plata in winter, taking insects out 
of the webs of spiders at a time and place where there were 
no flowers. Bullock, in Mexico, declares that he saw them 
catch small butterflies, and that he found many kinds of 
insects in their stomachs. Waterton made a similar state- 
ment. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of specimens have 
since been dissected by collecting naturalists, and in almost 
every instance their stomachs have been found full of insects 
— sometimes, but not generally, mixed with a proportion of 
honey. Many of them in fact may be seen catching gnats 
and other small insects just like fly-catchers, sitting on a dead 
twig over water, darting off’ for a time in the air, and then 
1 The Naturalist in Nicaragua, p. 112, 
