us for the metallic radiance
of their plumage. Take for an example of the former the Fire-tailed
Sun-bird of Nepal. The crown and forehead are brilliant steel-blue,
while the neck, the back, and the rump are of the richest scarlet,
diversified by a broad patch of bright yellow across the middle of the
back. The central feathers of the tail are lengthened, and are bright
scarlet, while the lateral feathers are edged with the same rich hue on
brown. The breast is golden yellow or orange, flushed with crimson in
the centre, and the rest of the inferior parts are olive-green. Most of
those gorgeous colours have a silky or metallic lustre, and blaze out
under the tropical sunlight with amazing brightness.

Exquisite ornaments are these to an Indian garden, where they delight in
the flowering plants and shrubs. They creep to and fro about the stalks
and twigs, clinging by their little purple feet, and rifling the tubular
corollas of the honeyed blossoms, whence doubtless they gather many
minute insects, licked up with the nectar, by the aid of their curiously
pencilled tongue.

For that peculiar charm which resides in flashing light combined with
the most brilliant colours, the lustre of precious stones, there are no
birds, no creatures, that can compare with the Humming-birds. Confined
exclusively to America,--whence we have already gathered between three
and four hundred distinct species, and more are being continually
discovered,--these lovely little winged gems were to the Mexican and
Peruvian Indians the very quintessence of beauty. By these simple people
they were called by various names signifying "the rays of the sun," "the
tresses of the day-star," and the like. Their glittering scale-like
plumage was employed to make, at the cost of immense time, patience, and
labour, the radiant mantles in which the emperors and highest nobles
appeared on state occasions, as well as to form by a sort of mosaic,
those embroidered pictures which so attracted the admiration of the
Spanish conquerors. The Mexican priests adopted the tiny birds into
their mythology: they taught that the souls of those warriors who died
in defence of the gods, were conducted by Toyamiqui, the wife of the
god of war, straight to the mansion of the sun, and there transformed
into humming-birds.

In the gorgeous forest glooms of the mountainous parts of Jamaica, and
especially in the sunny glades which here and there break their
uniformity, where the eve