Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/298

284 This species lives in the West Indies, and in various parts of South America. "It is in great request for the dealers, and thousands are killed annually. No species is so common as this in ornamental cases of humming-birds." Humming-birds are not only used for cabinet-specimens, but for various purposes of embellishment. The feathers are used to make flowers, pictures, and other ornaments. The birds are killed in various ways. Some are shot; but they are frequently so injured by this method as to be of little value. By the use of the sarbacane or shooting-tube, they can be stunned and taken without much injury. They are sometimes caught in nets uninjured; and occasionally they are taken by putting bird-lime, or other glutinous substance, in flowers which they habitually visit.

The nest of this species is formed almost entirely of cotton or fine grass, and is thick, compact, and warm, the inside being about an inch in diameter, and the same in depth. It is frequently attached to a leaf, put on the small branches of a rush, or built on the twig of a small bush. Mr. Kirk, residing in the island of Tobago, says: "The ruby-crested humming-birds make their appearance here on the 1st of February. They begin to make their nests about the 10th. I now know (March 1st) of several containing two eggs each; and watched a bird building one yesterday for nearly an hour. Her manner of construction was very ingenious: bringing a pile of small grass or lichen, she commenced upon a small twig about a quarter of an inch in diameter, immediately below a large leaf, which entirely covers and conceals the nest from above, the height from the ground being about three feet. After the nest had received two or three of these grasses, she set herself in the centre, and, putting her long, slender beak over the outer edge, seemed to use it and her throat much in the same way as a mason does his trowel, for the purpose of smoothing, rubbing to and fro, and sweeping quite around. Each visit to the nest seemed to occupy only a couple of seconds, and her absence from it not more than two minutes. A few hours after I saw the nest, which had all the appearance of a finished one."

The sappho comet, or bar-tailed humming-bird (Cometes sparganurus, Gould), is remarkable for the development and splendid color of the tail of the male bird. The feathers are broad and truncate, and the outer pair five or six inches long, the others decreasing rapidly toward the inner ones. They are of a brilliant reddish orange, with a metallic lustre of the greatest clearness, assuming a greater tinge of red or yellow, according to the direction of the light. The tail is darker at the base and of a lighter or more fiery red toward the extremity. The tip of each feather has a broad black bar, and when the tail is closed these tips appear as five black bars or bands. The upper parts of the head, neck, and body, are of a golden green; the rump, of a fine madder-red without lustre; the sides of the face and neck are bronzed; wings, purple-brown; the throat and breast are of a bright