139 
on the Birds of St. Croix. 
Gosse, and several others gifted with the “ pen of a ready 
writer " have so fully described, as far as words will admit, the 
habits of different members of the family Trochilidce , that it is 
unnecessary to say much on this score. Their appearance is so 
entirely unlike that of any other birds, that it is hopeless to 
attempt in any way to bring* a just conception of it to the ideas 
of those who have not crossed the Atlantic; and even the 
comparison so often made between them and the Sphingidre, 
though doubtless in the main true, is much to the advantage 
of the latter. One is admiring the clustering stars of a 
Scarlet Cordia , the snowy cornucopias of a Portlandia, or some 
other brilliant and beautiful flower, when between the blossom 
and one's eye suddenly appears a small dark object, suspended 
as it were between four short black threads meeting each other 
in a cross. For an instant it shows in front of the flower; an 
instant more, it steadies itself, and one perceives the space be¬ 
tween each pair of threads occupied by a grey film; again another 
instant, and emitting a momentary flash of emerald and sapphire 
light it is vanishing, lessening in the distance, as it shoots 
away, to a speck that the eye cannot take note of,—and all this 
so rapidly that the word on one's lips is still unspoken, scarcely 
the thought in one's mind changed. It was a bold man or an 
ignorant one who first ventured to depict Humming Birds fly¬ 
ing ; but it cannot be denied that representations of them in that 
attitude are often of special use to the ornithologist. The pecu¬ 
liar action of this, and probably many or all other species of 
the family, is such, that at times, in flying, it makes the wings 
almost meet both in front and behind at each vibration. Thus, 
when a bird chances to enter a room, it will generally go 
buzzing along the cornice : standing beneath where it is, one 
will find that the axis of the body is vertical, and each wing is 
describing a nearly perfect semicircle. As might be expected, 
the pectoral muscles are very large, indeed the sternum of this 
bird is a good deal bigger than that of the common Chimney 
Swallow ( Hirundo rustica, L.). But the extraordinary rapidity 
with which the vibrations are effected seems to be chiefly 
caused by these powerful muscles acting on the very short 
wing-bones, which are not half the length of the same parts in 
