GENUS 30. TROCHILUS. HUMMING-BIRD. 
SPECIES. T. COLUBRIS. 
HUMMING-BIRD. 
[Plate X. — Figs. 3 and 4.] 
Trochilus colubris. Linn. Syst. i, p. 191, tA'o, 12. — L’Oiseati 
mouclie a gorge rouge de la Caroline, Briss. Orn. iii, jj. 716, 
JVo. 13, t. 36, fig. 6. — Le Subis, Buff. Ois. vi, p. 13. — Hum- 
ming-Bird, Catf.sb. Car. i, 65. — Bed-throated Humming-bird, 
Edw. I, 38, male and female , — Lath. Syn. ii, 769, JVb. 35. — 
Peale’s Museum, J\''o. 2520. 
Nature in every department of her works seems to delight 
in variety; and the present subject of our history is almost as 
singular for its minuteness, beauty, want of song and manner of 
feeding, as the Mocking-bird is for unrivalled excellence of notes, 
and plainness of plumage. Though this interesting and beautiful 
genus of birds comprehends upwards of seventy species, all of 
which, with a very few exceptions, are natives of America and 
its adjacent islands, it is yet singular, that the species now be- 
fore us should be the only one of its tribe that ever visits the 
territory of the United States. 
According to the observations of my friend Mr. Abbot, of Sa- 
vannah, in Georgia, who has been engaged these thirty years 
in collecting and drawing subjects of natural history in that part 
of the country, the Humming-bird makes its first appearance 
there, from the south, about the twenty-third of March; two 
weeks earlier than it does in the county of Burke, sixty miles 
higher up the country towards the interior; and at least five 
weeks sooner than it reaches this part of Pennsylvania. As it 
passes on to the northward as far as the interior of Canada, where 
