The JYaturalists’ Companion. 19 
amid the petals of the splendid orchids, 
not a whit more beautiful than themselves. 
The tribes of the West Indies and Ameri¬ 
can mainland called them by various 
names, such as ‘^shooting-stars,” “will- 
o’-the-wisps,” etc., and wove head-orn¬ 
aments, bracelets, girdles, mantles, and 
beautiful pictures, superior in softness 
of sheene and variety of tint to the rich¬ 
est mosaic, out of the tiny feathers. 
In some parts ot South America they 
swarm so thickly in the trees that they 
might be almost mistaken for brilliant 
swarming wasps. But the curious trav¬ 
eler only needs to look a littler farther 
to find the Liliputian nests, no larger 
than a cloven walnut; suspended to the 
dancing twig of some wild or-ange, tam¬ 
arind, or other small tree. The tiny 
egg looks like blanched peas in a mossy 
pod. The nest might be mistaken for 
a bud on the bough, but, by and by, 
glittering little green heads and crimson 
gor'gets that peep over the side tell a dif¬ 
ferent story. 
The flight of these birds is inconceiv¬ 
ably rapid—so rapid, indeed, that the 
eye cannot follow it when the full speed 
is put forth; and with such wonderful 
rapidity do the little sharp-cut wings 
beat the air that their form is qiiite lost, 
and while the bird is hovering near a 
single spot the wings look like two filmy 
green fans attached to the sides. While 
darting from one flower to another, the 
bird can haidly be seen at all, as it seems 
to come suddenly into existence at some 
si)ot, and as suddenly to vanish from 
sight. Some hummingbirds are fond of 
towering to a great height in the air, 
and descending from thence to their 
nests or to feed, while others keep near 
the ground, and are seldom seen at an 
elevation of many yards. 
The food of the hummingbird is much 
the same as that of the honey-sucker, 
except, perhaps, that they consume more 
honey and less flies. Still they are ex¬ 
tremely fond of small insedls, and if 
kept away from this kind of diet, soon 
pine away in spite of unlimited supplies 
of syrup and other sweet food. 
The Ruby-throat is a variety most 
familiar to us, and never attain a length 
of more than three and a quarter inches. 
The throat of the male bird has a ruby- 
colored gorget, shading off into dee}) 
black and then to firy crimson and 
burnished orange. The female bird, it 
is hardly necessary to say, is always 
dressed in more sober colors. 
'This little fairy bird, in sjDite of his 
courage, is sometimes driven from its 
pleasant pastures by the humble-bee, 
whose sting is too much for the other’s 
long bill; and yet the little fellow is 
daring even to rashness. Hisshajie in¬ 
dicates a small stomach, a large brain, 
and a bigger heart 
Cbarlevoix, the French naturalist, re¬ 
lates that he had seen two hummingbirds 
fighting with a crow, and by their in¬ 
conceivably swift motion and long 
needle-like bill actually succeeded in 
killing their antagonist. Humming¬ 
birds in many cases have been tamed, 
and become much Mtached to their 
mistresses, learning to alight on the fin¬ 
ger and si}) sugar-water })resented in the 
calyx of a flower. But they crave some¬ 
thing more than sweet juices, and range 
through the air in search of insefits. 
There is one insedl—the great black 
spider of South America—which retali¬ 
ates and hunts the hummingbird as a 
dainty tidbit. But the little bird has 
an ally and avenger in the big-headed 
South American ant, which hunts the 
black spider and mercilessly destroys 
him. 
