To paint the Humming-bird with colours worthy of its beauty, would be a task as difficult as to fix on canvas the glowing tints of the rainbow, or the glories of the setting sun. Unrivalled in the metallic brilliancy of its plumage, it may truly be called the bird of paradise; and had it existed in the old world it would no doubt have claimed the title instead of the splendid bird which has now the honour to bear it. See with what lightning speed it darts from flower to flower; now hovering for an instant before you, as if to give you an opportunity of admiring its surpassing beauty, and now again vanishing with the rapidity of thought. But do not fancy that these winged jewels of the air, buzzing like bees round the blossoms less gorgeous than themselves, live entirely on the honey-dew collected within their petals; for on opening the stomach of a humming-bird, dead insects are almost always found there, which its long and slender beak, and cloven extensile tongue, like that of the woodpecker, enable it to catch at the very bottom of the tubular corollas. [Illustration: SAWBILL HUMMING-BIRD. BRAZILIAN WOOD NYMPH. WHITE-SIDED HILL STAR.] The torrid zone is the chief seat of the Humming-birds, but in summer they wander far beyond its bounds, and follow the sun in his annual declensions to the poles. Thus, in the north, they appear as flying visitors on the borders of the Canadian lakes, and on the southern coast of the peninsula of Aljaschka; while in the southern hemisphere they roam as far as Patagonia, and even as Tierra del Fuego; visiting in the northern hemisphere the confines of the walrus, and reaching in the south the regions of the penguin and the lion-seal; advancing towards the higher latitudes with the advance of summer, and again retreating at the approach of autumn. [Illustration: FIERY TOPAZ AND HERMIT.]