214 
BIRD-LIFE. 
chase : these take their stand on hare branches of trees, 
waiting quietly for some time, yet they will fly a 
long way after an insect and pursue the chase for hours 
together, like those true fishers of the air, the swallows. 
These last rarely commence the chase from the branch of 
a tree, and their cousins the Swifts never; these last are 
distinguished from the true Swallows from their hunting 
only in the higher regions of air.* We now come to the 
principal nocturnal hunters, our Goatsuckers, which in 
the south can boast of numerous and very singular¬ 
looking relations and connections; monsters among 
swallows, with mouths big enough to swallow the smallest 
member of their own family, feathers and all. Our night, 
being but short, suffices for one solitary species of this tribe, 
while in the lower latitudes there is ample occupation for 
numberless species of nocturnal insect-hunters. 
The Humming-birds of America, which may well be 
called children of the flowers, are also insect-eaters, 
and clever ones too. They thoroughly explore the 
different blossoms, extracting the smaller insects from 
their calyces—inaccessible to other birds—by means of 
their tiny split tongues, as with a pair of tongs ; hanging 
suspended in the air before a flower, they reap a harvest 
where no other bird can gather aught. They, however, 
not only play the part of Woodpeckers among the flowers, 
hut also that of Flycatchers, for they often follow flying 
insects like the latter, and thus unite in themselves the 
vocations of very different birds. 
Among birds of prey each one earns his livelihood 
without depriving other members of his class of their 
* This is not invariably the case. I have often seen Swifts hunting in scores 
close to the ground, and, vice versa , have observed Swallows feeding very high in the 
air. Most field-naturalists must have, doubtless, observed as much.—IF. J. 
