PDF - Wallace Online

HUMMING-BIRDS 321returning to the twig. Others come out just at dusk, andremain on the wing, now stationary, now darting about withthe greatest rapidity, imitating in a limited space the evolutionsof the goatsuckers, and evidently for the same endand purpose. Mr. Gosse also remarks": All the hummingbirdshave more or less the habit, when in of flight, pausingin the air and throwing the body and tail into rapid and oddcontortions. This is most observable in the Polytmus, fromthe effect that such motions have on the long feathers of thetail. That the object of these quick turns is the capture ofinsects, I am sure, having watched one thus engaged prettyclose to me. I observed it carefully, and distinctly saw theminute flies in the air which it pursued and caught, andheard repeatedly the snapping of the beak. My presencescarcely disturbed it, if at all."There is also an extensive group of small brown hummingbirds,forming the sub-family Phaethornithinse, which rarelyor never visit flowers, but frequent the shady recesses of theforest, where they hunt for minute insects. They dart aboutamong the foliage, and visit in rapid succession every leafupon a branch, balancing themselves vertically in the air,passing their beaks closely over the under-surface of each leaf,and thus capturing, no doubt, any small insects that maylurk there. While doing this, the two long feathers of thetail have a vibrating motion, serving apparently as a rudderto assist them in performing the delicate operation. Otherssearch up and down stems and dead sticks in the samemanner, every now and then picking off something, exactlyas a bush -shrike or a tree-creeper does, with the differencethat the humming-bird is constantly on the wing ;while theremarkable sickle-bill is said to probe the scale-covered stemsof palms and tree-ferns to obtain its insect food.It is a well-known fact that although humming-birds areeasily tamed, they cannot be preserved long in captivity, evenin their own country, when fed only on syrup. Audubonstates that when thus fed they only live a month or two anddie apparently starved ;while ifkept in a room whose openwindows are covered with a fine net, so as to allow smallinsects to enter, they have been kept for a whole year withoutany ill effects. Another writer, Mr. Webber, captured andY