HUMMELER, an implement or machine used for hummeling barley—that is, remov ing the awn from the grain after it has been thrashed. A common kind of hummeler is a set of blunt knives fixed in' a frame, with a handle, by means of which they are used in the manner of stamping. Another form consists of blunt knives set on a roller. These implements are worked by the hand. But hummelers of various construction are often attached to thrashing-machines, in all of which blunt knives are made to pass frequently through the grain.
Trochilus, a Linntean genus of birds, now constituting a family, trochilick, of the order insessores, and tribe tenuirostres. The species are numerous, more than 300 being known, whilst new ones are continually being discovered. They are found ouly in America and its islands, although represented, both in habits and in brilliancy of plumage, by the sun-birds (q.v.) of eastern tropical regions. Most of them 'tie tropical, although a few species are stmuner visitants of the colder parts of America, very seldom, however, seen beyond hit. 57° n.; whilst some of those found only within the tropics inhabit elevated mountainous tracts, even to the confines of perpetual snow. The dazzling brilliancy of humming-birds, the extreme rapidity with which they dart through the air, their hovering above the flowers from which they obtain their food, with humming sound of wings which move so quickly as to be indistinctly visible, or "like a mist," have attracted universal admiration since the first discovery of America. The diminutive size of almost all of them—some of them being tire smallest of birds, and if stripped of their feathers, not larger than a humble-bee—has still further contri buted to render them objects of interest, whilst the plumage of the different species exhibits an almost endless variety of forms as well as of colors, in crests, neck-tufts, leg-tufts, and many an extraordinary development of tail.
Humming-birds have slender bills. which are also generally long, and in some extremely so, the form of the bill exhibiting a wonderful adaptation to the kind of flowers from which tire bird obtains its food—straight in some, curved in others. Hum ming-birds do not, as was long supposed, feed on honey alone, but to a considerable extent, and some of them perhaps chiefly, on insects, not rejecting spiders, whilst they often snatch away the insects which have become entangled in spiders' webs. The lower mandible fits into the upper, and the bill is thus adapted as a tube for sucking, in which, as well as in seizing small insects within the recesses of flowers, the tongue is also a very efficient organ. The tongue is very long, capable of Leing darted out to a
considerable length; the bone of the tongue (hyoid bone) being much elongated, and its branches passing round the back of the skull to the forehead, where they meet in a point before tire line of the eyes. The tongue itself consists of two filaments, joined together for the greater part of their length, and separated at the tip. The wings of humming-birds are very long and powerful, the first quill-feather tire ,longest, and the rest shorter in succession. Humming-birds construct their nests with nice art, generally of lichens and of fibrous substances, such as cotton. They do not lay more than two eggs. They are very bold in defense of their nests and young, and are said to strike fearlessly with their needle-like bills at the eyes of birds of prey, which they far sur pass in agility and rapidity of flight. They are very easily tamed and rendered familiar, and have been known to return again in spring, after a winter migration to it warmer climate, to the window from which•they had been allowed to escape. Attempts to keep tamed humming-birds have generally failed, perhaps on account of their being sup posed capable of feeding only on honey or syrup, whereas insect food seems necessary for them. Attempts made to bring them across the Atlantic have, in the great majority of cases, been unsuccessful.
We cannot propose to describe any of tire species of humming-bird, nor to give the characters of the numerous genera into which the family has been divided. Form alone without color is insufficient to convey a proper idea of their metallic and gem-like splen dor, which in many cases varies with every change of position and of light.
The ruby-throated humming-bird (trochilus colubris) is the only species found in the northern Atlantic states of North America. It ventures even into the regions of the Hudson's bay company.
The skies of humming-birds were employed for ornamental purposes by the more civilized American races before the discovery of America by Europeans, and were used by the Mexicans for making those pictures which so much attracted the admiration of their Spanish conquerors.
One of the. greatest authorities on the humming-bird is Gould, who has written a work upon the subject, magnificently illustrated.
HirMORS. See MEDICINE.