1060 Marvels of the Universe 
HUMMING-BIRDS 
BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G. 
THE Humming-birds are certainly marvels of avian development, in some respects the most elabo- 
rately evolved of all birds. Their mode of life has made smallness an ideal to be aimed at rather 
than size, as they have devoted themselves more especially to the search for tiny insects in the 
cups of flowers as well as, no doubt, the sweet liquids which flowers develop in their innermost 
recesses for the attraction of insects. Consequently, it is in this group that we find the 
smallest known bird (Mellisuga minima),* only two inches and a half long, which is peculiar 
By permission of] > [Sir H. H. Johnston, G.C.M.G. 
HUMMING-BIRDS. 
The largest and the smallest of the Humming-birds are shown in this photograph. 
to the large West Indian island of Hispaniola (Haiti-Santo Domingo), and Jamaica. But not 
all Humming-birds are so minute. The largest of them, which comes from the Andes of South 
America, from Ecuador to Chili, is eight and a half inches long, has large, strong feet, and flaps its 
wings instead of hovering about the flowers with a whirring flight like almost all other Humming- 
birds, a form of flight peculiar to the group. The largest of the Humming-birds, however, is the 
plainest coloured, being only greenish-grey brown and a dull white. Humming-birds specially 
- noteworthy for gorgeousness are members of the genus Eulampis in the Southern West Indies and 
South America, one of which is golden-green, with dazzling blue chest and lower back. Eulampis 
jugularis, from the Windward Islands, has a crimson throat and green wings, and this peculiarity 
(found in one other genus of Humming-birds) is an exception to the general rule which provides 
that, however gorgeous may be the bodies of these gem-like birds, the wings are a sepia-brown or 
* It is possible, however, that there is an even smaller bird, whose total length is under two and a half inches, in either 
Peru or Cuba. 
