Jamaica possesses three, which are all quite distinct, and so widely different from every other, that it
is a perfect mystery to the naturalist how they first obtained a footing there. Nothing like interbreeding
between two species appears to occur in this' island; if such were the case, we could not b it be aware
o f the fact, since we have not only been for many years in the habit of receiving hundreds o f bird?
from Jamaica, but this island has had the advantage o f a naturalist, Mr. Gosse, who has most closely
observed the birds resident there. St. Domingo has two species, differing from those o f Jamaica. This
law with respect to the Humming-Bird inhabitants of the West Indian and Leeward Islands, is equally
carried out in the necklace-like string o f the Windwards; but when we arrive at the island o f Trinidad, the
species become much more numerous and partake o f the character o f those which inhabit the mainland ,
the opposite shores o f Venezuela.
It may be asked, what is our present knowledge o f the'existing species o f Humming-Birds, and if there
may not be others to be discovered in the great primeval forests o f the western and other parts o f the vast
continent o f the new world. My reply is that, in all probability, many more than are known to us do exist,
and that a very lengthened period must elapse before we shall acquire anything like a perfect knowledge of
the group. Whatever I may have done towards the elucidation o f the subject, I must only be regarded as
a pioneer for those who, in future ages, will render our acquaintance with this family of birds so much more
complete than it is at the present time.
The regions o f South America whose productions are least known are Costa Rica, Veragua, Panama, the
sea-bord between Carthagena and Guayaquil, the forests of La Paz and other parts o f Bolivia, the whole o f
the eastern slopes o f the Andes bordering Peru and Ecuador, and the western portion o f Brazil. All these
countries will doubtless furnish new kinds o f Humming-Birds when the explorer shall extend his researches
into tbeir unknown recesses. We may feel fully convinced that such will be the case from the circumstance
o f single individuals in a youthful or imperfect state, which we cannot identify as belonging to any known
species, occasionally occurring in the great collections sent from time to time to Europe. My own collection
contains several examples o f this kind, which will doubtless at some future day prove to belong to undescribed
species. For more than twenty long years have I been sending the most earnest entreaties, accomr
panied with drawings, to my correspondents in Peru and Ecuador for additional examples o f that truly
wonderful bird the Loddigesiu mirabilis. These entreaties have been backed by the offers o f large sums of
money to any person who would procure them; but up to the present moment no second example has been
obtained. Probably the single individual killed by Mr. Matthews in the neighbourhood o f Chachapoyas was
one which had accidentally strayed beyond the area in which the species usually dwells, and which has not
yet been discovered. That it may be a nocturnal bird has sometimes suggested itself to my mind, and that
this may be the reason why it has not since been seen. Those o f my readers who are not acquainted with
this most wonderful member o f the Trochilidse will do well to refer to the plate, in which a correct representation
o f it is given by the masterly hand o f Mr. Richter.
The preceding remarks must, I think, have given the reader a general idea of the countries inhabited
by the members o f the great family o f Humming-Birds; it now becomes necessary to speak o f their peculiar
structure, and the place they appear to occupy in the Class A v e s . By systematists they have been bandied
about from one group to another: by some they have been associated with the Sun-Birds (Nectarinicn) ; by
others with the Cypselince, Piciniee, Sittince, Certhinee, &c.
In Brisson’s arrangement, published in 1760, they constitute with the Creepers his twelfth Order. By
Linnseus in 1766, and Latham in 1790, they were placed in the class Piece, together with the Creepers, Hoopoes,
&c. In like manner they are associated with the same birds in the fourteenth order of Lacepede’s arrangement,
published in 1799. In Dumeril’s classification, proposed in 1806, they form part of his second Order,
Passerine Birds, and are associated with Kingfishers, Todies, Nuthatches, Bee-Eaters, Creepers, &c. They
form a distinct family o f the second Order, Ambulatores, in the arrangement of Illiger published in 1811.
They also constitute a distinct family by themselves o f the Tenuirostral Division of the order Passeres in
Cuvier’s system of 1817. By Vieillot, whose arrangement was published about the same time, they form
part of the twenty-second family SylmcolcB, and are associated with Creepers, Sun-Birds, and Honey-Eaters.
By Temminck, in the second edition o f his ‘ Manuel d’Ornithologie,’ published in 1820, they were placed,
together with the Creepers, Sun-Birds, Hoopoes, &c., iu his sixth Order, Anisodactyli. In De Blainville’s
arrangement, which appeared in the years 1815, 1821, and 1822, they form a separate family of the
Saltatores, with the Kingfishers preceding, and the Crows following them. Vigors, in 1825, made them a
distinct family of his second Order, Insessores,—the preceding family being composed of the Sun-Birds, and the
succeeding one of the Promeropidce. Latreille in the same year placed them in the fourth family, Tenuirostres,
o f the second Order or Passerine Birds, along with the Hoopoes, Promerops, Sun-Birds, &c. Lesson, in
1828, made them the eighth family o f the Insessores, and associated them with the Sun-Birds, Creepers, &e.
By Boie they were divided, in the ‘ Isis’ for 1831, into eleven genera, viz. Bellatrix, Callmllox, Glaucis,
Anthracorax, Heliactin, Hylocharis, Basilinna, Chrysolampis, Heliothrix, Smaragdites, and Eulampis. Swainson,
in 1837, constituted them the third family of the Tenuirostres, with the Sun-Birds preceding, and the
Promeropidm and Hoopoes succeeding them. In Mr. G. R. Gray’s ‘ List of the Genera of Birds,’ published
in 1841, and in his great work ‘ On the Genera o f Birds,’ completed in 1850, they form the third family of
the Tenuirostres. In the ‘ Conspectus Systematis Ornithologise ’ of Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, given
to the world a few years before his lamented death, they form Stirps 17 suspensi, o f his second Order
P a s s e r e s ; and Tribe Volucres, with the Hoopoes and Promerops placed before, and the Swifts and Swallows
after them. In his ‘ Conspectus Generum Avium ’ they form the eleventh family of the Insessores, with the
Swifts preceding them, and are succeeded by the Phytotomidce or Plant-Cutters. In his “ Conspectus
Trochilorum,” published in the ‘ Revue et Magasin de Zoologie ’ for May, 1854, they form the seventy-
secoud family o f his Passerine Birds. In Dr. Reichenbach’s arrangement, in Cabanis’s ‘ Journal fur Ornitho-
lo g ie’ for 1853, they are fancifully divided into groups o f Fairies, Elfs, Gnomes, Sylphs, &c.; and in his
‘ Trochilinarum Enumeratio ’ he places these birds between the true Creepers on the one hand, and the
Hoopoes on the other. By Cabanis, the latest writer on the subject, they are placed with the Swifts and
Goatsuckers, in his 3rd Order, Strisores, and Tribe Macrochires.
Ornithologists of the present day consider them to be more intimately allied to the true Swifts than to
any other group of birds. This view of the subject is supported by the fact of the Humming-Birds, like
the Swifts, having most ample wings, and a bony structure very closely assimilating; and this alliance is
still further exemplified in some parts o f their nidification, the number and colour of their eggs, &c. It is
not to be expected that, with this subject before me for so many years, I should have been inattentive to
the consideration of the place these birds should occupy in our attempts at a natural arrangement; and
while I admit that they are somewhat allied to the Swifts, they are so essentially distinct from these and all
other birds, that they might be separated into a distinct Order with quite as much (if not greater) propriety
as the Pigeons when considered in relation to the Gallinaceous Birds. They have certain characters, dispo