ORNITHOLOGY. 
NATURAL HISTORY OF HUMMING-BIRDS. 
Hi 8 silken vest ■was purfled o’er with green. 
And crimson rose-leaves wrought the sprigs between ; 
His diadem, a topaz, beam’d so bright. 
The moon was dazzled with its purest light. 
The geographical distribution of the various races 
of created beings has of late excited considerable in- 
terest, and a mass of facts have been collected which 
go far to prove that it is regulated by certain laws, 
chiefly dependent upon the conjoined influences of 
climate and temperature. Birds are equally subject 
to those rules, though, as might be suspected from 
their more extended locomotive powers, their ranges 
are wider, and some groups and species are more 
generally spread over the world than those beings 
which require the assistance of a solid medium to 
transport themselves from place to place. Instances 
of this may be given in one or two examples. The 
great families of the falcons, pigeons, and swallows, 
are universally diffused ; parrots are found in every 
