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In Brisson’s arrangement, published in 1760, they constitute with the Creepers his twelfth Order. By
Linneeus in 1766, and Latham in 1790, they were placed in the class Pice, together with the Creepers, Hoopoes,
&c. In like manner they are associated with the same birds in the fourteenth order of Lacepeéde’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-Katers, Creepers, &c. They
form a distinct family of the second Order, Ambulatores, in the arrangement of Illiger published in 1811.
They also constitute a distinct family by themselves of 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 Sy/vicole, and are associated with Creepers, Sun-Birds, and Honey-Katers.
By Temminck, in the second edition of his ‘ Manuel d’ Ornithologie,’ published in 1820, they were placed,
together with the Creepers, Sun-Birds, Hoopoes, &c., in 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. V igors, in 1825, made them a
distinct family of his second Order, Jnsessores,—the preceding family being composed of the Sun-Birds, and the
succeeding one of the Promeropide. Latreille in the same year placed them in the fourth family, Zenuirostres,
of the second Order or Passerine Birds, along with the Hoopoes, Promerops, Sun-Birds, &c. Lesson, in
1828, made them the eighth family of the Jzsessores, and associated them with the Sun-Birds, Creepers, &c.
By Boié they were divided, in the ‘Isis’ for 1831, into eleven genera, viz. Bellatriv, Callivhlox, Glaucis,
Anthracorax, Hehactin, Hylocharis, Basilinna, Chrysolampis, Heliothria, Smaragdites, and Eulampis. Swainson,
in 1837, constituted them the third family of the Tenuirostres, with the Sun-Birds preceding, and the
Promeropide 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 of Birds,’ completed in 1850, they form the third family of
the Tenwrostres. In the ‘ Conspectus Systematis Ornithologiz’ of Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, given
to the world a few years before his lamented death, they form Stirps 17 suspensi, of his second Order
Passrres ; 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 Znsessores, with the
Swifts preceding them, and are succeeded by the Phytotomide or Plant-Cutters. In his ‘* Conspectus
Trochilorum,” published in the ‘Revue et Magasin de Zoologie’ for May, 1854, they form the seventy-
second family of his Passerine Birds. In Dr. Reichenbach’s arrangement, in Cabanis’s ‘ Journal fiir Ornitho-
logie’ for 1853, they are fancifully divided into groups of 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 38rd Order, S¢risores, 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 of 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-

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