150 
INTRODUCTION. 
other members, prevents the wings being used to 
pursue an insect prey, though their great develop- 
ment is as necessary to the manner in which they 
feed, by hovering above the beautiful blossoms 
which afford a sustenance, in part, alike to them 
and to a host of minute insects ; and also to perform 
the lengthened migrations which these species are 
known to undertake annually. In the Sun-birds, 
or Nectariniad®, the family which we have now to 
examine, we see no such extraordinary development 
of wing, and their legs and feet, or, in other words, 
their provisions for perching, are equal to those of 
the majority of the Incessores, and show at once a 
marked difference between the structure of the same 
parts in truly fissirostral birds, where they are al- 
ways extremely weak, comparatively unfitted for 
perclung or settling on the ground ; and where, in 
fact, they are constructed upon that model which 
will be least incommodious to the bird in pursuing 
its prey with rapidity through the air, or in per- 
forming very long migrations. The nectariferous 
juices of flowers have also been considered as the 
chief food of the Sun-birds, at least during certain 
seasons of the year ; but we find the manner of 
seeking for these to be very different from the 
hovering flight of the Humming-birds,* the Nec- 
tariniad* always perching first, and exhibiting 
* Mr. Jerdon states of the purple Sun-bird ( C. Mahrattensis , 
Jerd.), “ That it occasionally hovers on the wing before a flower, 
while extracting the honey, but generally hops or flies rather 
among the smaller twigs. It feeds partly on the honey ex- 
