"Scarcely larger than the average size of Humming Birds," writes Mr. Gosse, "this little Creeper is often seen in company with them, probing the same flowers, and for the same purpose, but in a very different manner. Instead of hovering in front of each blossom, a task to which his short wings would be utterly incompetent, the Quit alights on the tree, and proceeds in most business-like manner to peep into the flowers, hopping actively from twig to twig, and throwing his body into all positions, often clinging by his feet with his head downwards, the better to reach the blossoms with his curved beak and pencilled tongue; the minute insects which are concealed in the flowers are always the objects of his search. Unsuspectingly familiar, these birds resort much to the blossoming shrubs of enclosed gardens. The soft, sibilant note of the Quit is often uttered while the bird peeps about for food. The nest is frequently built in those low trees and bushes from whose twigs depend the paper nests of the brown wasps, and in close contiguity with them. On the 4th of May, as I was riding to Savannah-le-Mar, I observed a Banana Quit with a bit of silk cotton in her beak, and, on searching, found a nest just commenced in a sage bush (_Lautana camara_). The structure, though incomplete, was evidently about to be a dome, and so far was entirely constructed of silk-cotton. A nest now before me is in the form of a globe, with a small opening in the side. The walls are very thick, composed of dry grass, intermixed irregularly with the down of Asclepias. This nest I found between the twigs of a branch of Bauhinia that projected over the high road, near Content, in St. Elizabeth's. The two eggs were greenish white, thickly but indefinitely dashed with red at the broad end." [Illustration: THE ABU-RISCH (_Hedydipna metallica_).] In the Eastern Hemisphere the Flower Birds are represented by-- * * * * *