. The royal natural history. ds arecharacterised by the presence of ten feathers in the tail, and the same number ofprimary quills in the wing; while the secondaries are reduced to six, and are thusvery different to those of the perching birds. The three forwardly-directed toes are 22 PICARIAN BIRDS. supplied by as many branches of one tendon, while another serves the backwardly-directed first toe. The most remarkable peculiarity of the humming-birds is inthe structure of the tongue, this organ being extensile, with its supporting bonescarried backwards over the hinder part of the skull. Altho
. The royal natural history. ds arecharacterised by the presence of ten feathers in the tail, and the same number ofprimary quills in the wing; while the secondaries are reduced to six, and are thusvery different to those of the perching birds. The three forwardly-directed toes are 22 PICARIAN BIRDS. supplied by as many branches of one tendon, while another serves the backwardly-directed first toe. The most remarkable peculiarity of the humming-birds is inthe structure of the tongue, this organ being extensile, with its supporting bonescarried backwards over the hinder part of the skull. Although adorned with such brilliant metallic colours, themembers of this family do not display their tinselled plumage toany great advantage during flight; many observers having remarked how littleof the brilliancy of the birds body is apparent when it is darting through thetrees or hovering in front of a flower. This is duo to the extremely rapid motionsof a humming-birds wing, the beats of which are almost invisible from their. CHIiMBOKAZAN HILL-STAK (J IKlt. Size). rapidity. Professor Newton has well described the impression conveyed by thebirds flight when he writes that, one is admiring the clustering stars of a scarletCordia, the snowy cornucopias of a Portlandia, or some other brilliant andbeautiful flower, when between ones eye and the blossoms suddenly appears asmall, dark object, suspended, as it were, between four short black threads, meetingeach other in a cross. For an instant it sliows in front of the flower; an instantmore it steadies itself, and one fancies the space between each pair of threadsoccupied by a grey film; again another instant, and, emitting a momentary flashof emerald and sapphire light, it is vanishing, lessening in the distance as it shootsaway, to a speck that the e^^e cannot take note of—and all this so rapidly that theword on ones lips is still unspoken, scarcely the tlioughfc in ones mind Gould, who specially studied the ways of lu
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