Identifier: historyofbirdsth00bing (find matches)
Title: The history of birds : their varieties and oddities, comprising graphic descriptions of nearly all known species of birds, with fishes and insects, the world over, and illustrating their varied habits, modes of life, and distinguishing peculiarities by means of delightful anecdotes and spirited engravings
Year: 1880 (1880s)
Authors: Bingley, William, 1774-1823
Subjects: Birds Zoology
Publisher: Philadelphia : Edgewood Publishing Co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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s somewhat more thanthree inches; of which its bill occupies three quarters of an inch.The male is of a green-gold color on the upper part, with a change-able copper gloss; and the under parts are gray. The throat andforepart of the neck are of a ruby color, in some lights as bright asfire. When viewed sideways, the feathers appear mixed with gold,and beneath they are of a dull garnet color. The two middle feathersof the tail are similar in color to the upper plumage, and the rest arebrown. The feni£.le, instead of the bright ruby throat, has only a fewobscure brown spots; and all the outer tail-feathers, which in the male\re plain, are in the female tipped with white. This beautiful little creature is as admirable for its vast swiflnesain the air, and its manner of feeding, as for the elegance and brilliancyof its colors. It flies so swiftly, that the eye is incapable of followingits course; and the motion of its wings is so rapid, as to be imper- 1C8 THE KED-TIIKUATED HUMMING-BIRD.
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BEB-THBOATED HDMMlSG-BiBI* AKD NEST. jpptible to the nicest observer. Lightning is scarcely more transientthan its flight, nor the ghire more bright tlian its colors. It never fectis but npon the wing, suspentled over the flower fromwliich it extracts nourishment; for its only food is the honeyed juicelodged in flowers, and this it sucks through the tnlx>s of its curioustoniriie. Like the bee, liaving exhausted the honey of one flower, itwanders to the nsxt in search of new sweets. It admires most those THE RED-TIIKOATED IIUM.MIXG-DHID. 139 flowers that have the deepest tuhes; and in the eountruS which thopebirds inhabit, wlioever sets plants of this description before his windows,is snre to be visited by great numbers of them. It is very entertalnin:^to see them swarming around the flowers, and trying every tube by))utting in their bills. If they find that their brethren have anticijiatedthem, and robbed the flower of its honey, they Avill pluck it o(F in arage, and throw it on th

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