Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/299

Rh emerald-green, with very brilliant metallic lustre; the abdomen, darker green. The female is smaller than the male, and has a shorter tail, and less brilliant color.

This species is a native of Bolivia, but spends the winter in Eastern Peru. It migrates southward to Bolivia in September or October, the spring of their year, raises its young, and, after spending the summer, returns northward with them in March or April, their autumn, to Eastern Peru. It is a remarkably familiar bird, for it not only feeds



upon the flowers of the forest-trees, but visits the orchards when in bloom, the cottage shrubbery, the gardens, and the cultivated fields of maize, pulse, and other leguminous plants. It obtains an abundant supply of insect-food from the rich flowers of the cactus family. Mr. Bonelli says: "The difficulty of shooting these birds is inconceivably great, from the extraordinary turns and evolutions they make when on the wing; at one instant darting headlong into a flower; at the next, describing a circle in the air with such rapidity that the eye,