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TROPICAL NATUREallied species on Chimborazo ranges from fourteen thousandfeet to the limits of perpetual snow at sixteen thousand feetelevation. It frequents a beautiful yellow- flowered alpineshrub belonging to the Asteracese. On the extinct volcano ofChiriqui in Veragua a minute humming-bird, called the littleFlame -bearer, has been only found inside the crater. Itsscaled gorget is of such a flaming crimson that, as Mr. Gouldremarks, it seems to have caught the last spark from thevolcano before it was extinguished.Not only are humming-birds found over the whole extentof America, from Sitka to Tierra-del-Fuego, and from thelevel of the sea to the snow-line on the Andes, but they inhabitmany of the islands at a great distance from the mainland.The West Indian islands possess fifteen distinct speciesbelonging to eight different genera, and these are so unlikeany found on the continent that five of these genera arepeculiar to the Antilles. Even the Bahamas, so close toFlorida, possess two peculiar species. The small group ofislands called Tres Marias, about sixty miles from the westcoast of Mexico, has a peculiar species. More remarkable arethe two humming-birds of Juan Fernandez, situated in thePacific Ocean, four hundred miles west of Valparaiso in Chili,one of these being peculiar; while another species inhabitsthe little island Mas-afuera, ninety miles farther west. TheGalapagos, though very little farther from the mainland andmuch more extensive, have no humming-birds ;neither havethe Falkland islands, and the reason seems to be that boththese groups are deficient in forest, and in fact have hardlyany trees or large shrubs, while there is a great paucity offlowers and of insect life.Humming-birds of Juan Fernandez as illustrating Variation andNatural SelectionThe three species Avhich inhabit Juan Fernandez and Masafuerapresent certain peculiarities of great interest.Theyform a distinct genus, Eustephanus, one species of which inhabitsChili as well as the island of Juan Fernandez. which This,may be termed the Chilian species, is greenish in bothsexes, whereas in the two species peculiar to the islands themales are red or reddish-brown, and the females green. The