Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, volume 1.djvu/281

Rh Having heard several persons remark that these little creatures had been procured with less injury to their plumage, by shooting them with water, I was tempted to make the experiment, having been in the habit of killing them either with remarkably small shot, or with sand. However, finding that even when within a few paces, I seldom brought one to the ground when I used water instead of shot, and was moreover obliged to clean my gun after every discharge, I abandoned the scheme, and feel confident that it can never have been used with material advantage. I have frequently secured some by employing an insect-net, and were this machine used with dexterity, it would afford the best means of procuring Humming Birds.

I have represented ten of these pretty and most interesting birds, in various positions, flitting, feeding, caressing each other, or sitting on the slender stalks of the trumpet-flower and pluming themselves. The diversity of action and attitude thus exhibited, may, I trust, prove sufficient to present a faithful idea of their appearance and manners. A figure of the nest you will find elsewhere. The nest is generally placed low, on the horizontal branch of any kind of tree, seldom more than twenty feet from the ground. They are far from being particular in this matter, as I have often found a nest attached by one side only to a twig of a rose-bush, currant, or the strong stalk of a rank weed, sometimes in the middle of the forest, at other times on the branch of an oak, immediately over the road, and again in the garden close to the walk.

, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 191—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. i. p. 312—Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of the United States, p. 98. , Lath. Synops. vol. ii. p. 769. , Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 26. Pl. 10. fig. 3. Male; fig. 4. Female.

Adult Male. Plate XLVII. Fig. 1, 1, 1, 1. Bill long, straight, subulate, depressed at the base, acute; upper mandible rounded, its edges overlapping. Nostrils basal, linear. Tongue very extensile, filiform, divided towards the end into two filaments. Feet very short and feeble; tarsus slender, shorter than the middle toe, partly feathered; fore toes united at the base; claws curved, compressed, acute.

Plumage compact, imbricated above and on the throat, with metallic lustre, blended beneath. Wings long, narrow, a little incurved at the