[Illustration: SWORD BILL HUMMING BIRD.]
The Humming-birds are the most lovely of the winged race. Nature seems
to have endowed them with her rarest gifts. In creating them she
surpassed herself, and exhausted all the charms at her disposal; for she
gave them grace, elegance, rapidity of motion, magnificence of plumage,
and indomitable courage. What can be more delightful than the sight of
these little feathered beauties, flashing with the united fires of the
ruby, the topaz, the sapphire, and the emerald, flying from flower to
flower amid the richest tropical vegetation? Such are the lightness and
rapidity of some of the smaller species, that the eye can scarcely
follow the quick beat of their wings. When they hover they appear
perfectly motionless, and one might fancy them suspended by an invisible
thread.
Specially adapted for life in the air, they are unceasingly in motion,
searching for their food in the calyx of flowers, from which they drink
the nectar with so much gentleness that the plant is scarcely stirred.
But the juice and honey of flowers, as some authors affirm, are not
their only food—such unsubstantial diet would be insufficient to sustain
the great activity displayed almost every moment of their existence.
The tongue of the Humming-bird is a microscopic instrument of marvellous
arrangement. It is composed of two half-tubes placed one against the
other, capable of opening and shutting, like a pair of pliers. Moreover,
it is constantly moistened by a glutinous saliva, by which it is enabled
to seize and hold Insects.
[Illustration: CRESTED HUMMING BIRD.]
Proud of their gay colors, the Humming-birds take the greatest care to
protect their plumage. They frequently dress themselves by passing their
feathers through their bills.
The nest of the Humming-bird is a masterpiece. It is about the size of
half an apricot. These consist of lichens, and are most artistically
interwoven, the crevices being closed up with the Bird’s saliva; the
interior is padded with the silky fibres furnished by various plants.
This pretty cradle is suspended to a leaf, sometimes to a small branch
of rushes, or even to the straw roof of a hut. The Bird lays twice a
year a pair of pure white eggs, about the size of a pea.
These little creatures are universally admired for their elegance and
beauty, and the names given them are generally descriptive of their
excessive minuteness. The creoles of the Antilles call them Murmurers;
the Spaniards Picaflores; the Brazilians, Shupaflores, or
Flower-suckers; finally, the Indians call these darlings Sunbeams.
Among the most formidable enemies of the Humming-bird may be reckoned
the Monster Spider, which spins its web round their nests, and devours
eggs or young; even the old Birds are sometimes its victims.
Humming-birds are scattered over the greater part of South and North
America, even as far north as Canada; but in Brazil and Guiana they are
most abundant. At least 500 species are known. Among the more remarkable
species we may note the Topaz-throated Trochilus, a native of Brazil;
the Sickle-winged Humming-bird; the Double-crested Humming-bird; Gould’s
Humming-bird; Cora Humming-bird; the Giant Humming-bird, which attains
the size of a Swallow; the Dwarf Humming-bird, whose size does not
exceed that of a bee; the Bar-tailed Humming-bird or Sapho Comet, a
native of Eastern Peru; the Racket-tailed Humming-bird, so named from
the shape of its tail, which spreads out at the extremity in the form of
a racket; the Crested Humming-bird, with a double crest on the head of
the male Bird; and the Sword-bill Humming-bird, with a bill as long as
the whole body of the Bird.