to pluck the tica, or golden ornament, from the forehead of their favourite, and bring it to their expecting master.

THE HUMMING BIRD.

THERE are not less than sixty-five species of this very curious bird, all of them remarkable for the beauty of their colours. Of these the MINIMUS, FLY-BIRD, or LEAST HUMMING BIRD, the most diminutive of the feathered tribe, may be cited as among the most interesting of the minute wonders of nature. It is exceeded, both in weight and dimensions, by several species of bees. Its total length is one inch and a quarter; and, when killed, it does not weigh more than about twenty grains. The bill is straight and black, three lines and a half in length: the upper parts of the body are of a greenish brown, in some lights appearing reddish: the under parts are greyish white; the wings are violet brown; the tail of a bluish black, with a gloss of polished metal; but the outer feathers, except one on each side, are grey from the middle to the tip, and the outer one wholly grey the legs and claws are brown. The female is still less than the male.

These birds, which are natives of the Brazils, of various parts of South America, and of the adjacent islands, subsist on the nectar or sweet juice of flowers, frequenting those most which have a long tube. They never settle on the flower during the act of extracting the juice, but flutter continually like bees, moving their wings very briskly, and inaking a humming noise, whence they have received their names. They are not shy; but when very nearly approached fly off like an arrow from a bow. They often meet and fight for the right to a flower, and this all on the wing: in this state they often enter an apartment, the windows of which are open, fight a little, and go out again. When they come to a flower which is juiceless, or on the point of withering, they pluck it off as it were in anger, by which means the ground is often strewed with flowers. In flying against each other, they have, besides the humning, a chirping note resembling that of the sparrow.They do not feed either on insects or fruits; but have been kept alive in cages for several weeks, by feeding them with sugared water.

The humming bird builds most frequently in the middle

of a branch of a tree, the nest being so small that it cannot be seen by one standing on the ground beneath. It is round; is composed externally of fine green moss; and has its inside lined with soft down, collected either from the leaves of the great mullien, or from silk grass The eggs, of which the female lays two, are white, and of the size of a pea.

During his stay at the Brazils, Mr. Forbes visited almost daily a lovely valley in the neighbourhood of St. Sebastian. 66 There," he observes, "thousands of nature's choristers, arrayed in all the brilliancy of tropical plumage, enlivened the extensive orange groves; and the humming-bird, the smallest and most lovely of the feathered race, buzzed like the bee, while sipping the nectareous dew from the blossoms of the flowers. Nothing can exceed the delicacy of these little beauties; especially of that which, from its minuteness, is called the fly-bird; its bill and legs are not thicker than a pin; its head, tufted with glossy jet, varies with every motion into shades of green and purple; the breast is of a bright flame colour; every feather, when viewed through a microscope, appears as if fringed with silver, and spotted with gold."

EDIBLE BIRDS' NESTS.

AMONG the interesting subjects which still remain open for research, are the habits and constitution of the HIRUNDO ESCULENTA, the small swallow which forms the edible nests, annually exported in large quantities from Java and the eastern islands for the Chinese market. These birds Governor Raffles observes, in his history of Java, not only abound among the cliffs and caverns of the south coast of that island, but inhabit the fissures and caverns of several of the mountains and hills in the interior of the country. From every observation which has been made in Java, it has been inferred that the mucilaginous substance of which the nests are formed, is not, as has been generally supposed, obtained from the ocean. The birds, it is true, generally inhabit the caverns in the vicinity of the sea, as agreeing best with their habits, and affording them the most convenient retreats to which to attach their nests; but several caverns are found inland, at a distance of forty or fifty miles

from the sea, containing nests similar to those on the shore. From many of their retreats along the southern coast, they have been observed to take their flight in an inland direction, towards the pools, lakes, and extensive marshes, covered with stagnant water, as affording them abundance of their food, which consists of flies, musquitoes, gnats, and small insects of every description. The sea, which washes the foot of the cliffs, where they most abound, is almost always in a state of the most violent agitation, and affords none of those substances which have been supposed to constitute the food of the esculent swallow. Another species of swallow in the island of Java, forms a nest, in which grass, moss, &c. are merely agglutinated by a substance exactly similar to that of which exclusively the edible nests consist. This substance, from whatever part of those regions the nests be derived, is essentially uniform, differing only in the colour, according to the relative age of the nests. It exhibits none of those diversities which might be expected, if, like the mud employed by the martin, and the materials commonly used in nest-making, it were collected casually, and applied to the rocks. Were it to consist of the substances usually supposed, it would be putrescent and diversified.

THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

Yea, the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming.

JEREMIAH.

Who bids the stork, Columbus like, explore
Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, states the certain day?
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?

POPE.

THE migration of birds, which is common to the quail, the stork, the crane, the fieldfare, the woodcock, the cuckoo, the martin, the swallow, and various others, is justly considered as one of the most wonderful instincts of nature. Two circumstances, Doctor Derham observes, are remarkable in this migration: the first, that these uninstructed creatures should know the proper times for their passage, when to come, and when to go, some departing while others