Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/73

60 Their food is obtained principally from the interior of flowers; and they are almost constantly engaged, in small groups, on the twigs of trees and bushes, hopping about with a rapid motion, and at the same time moving their wings in a tremulous manner, while they insert their long beaks into the tubular blossoms in succession. Sometimes they have been observed to hover on the wing before a flower while probing its depths, but this is rare, the ordinary mode of procedure being to cling to the twigs. Occasionally they are seen to snap at a passing insect in the air; and judging from the analogy of the Hummingbirds, we should conclude that insects are the principal object of search in the corollas of flowers, the nectarious juice contributing but partially to their support. And this is confirmed by the observations of Dr. Andrew Smith, on some species of Southern Africa:—" The birds of the genus Cinnyris (or Nectarinia) have generally been regarded as feeding upon the saccharine juices which exist in flowers; but, as far as my experience goes, I should be inclined to consider them as giving a preference to insects. In those I examined I found the bulk of the contents of the stomach to be insects, though at the same time each contained more or less of a saccharine juice. The acquisition of a certain portion of the latter is not easily to be avoided, considering the manner they insert their bill into flowers; but the consumption of insects of such a size as I have found in their stomachs must easily be obviated, provided these were not agreeable to their palates, and not actually a description of food which they by choice selected."