PREFACE. Vil

a greatly increased expenditure both of time and money: it is only in capitals like London
and Paris that undertakings of this nature can be carried out successfully ; for nowhere else

are the requisite talents and materials to be obtained.

I feel that I am greatly indebted to those who have honoured this work with their support
for their kindness and the patience with which they have continued with me to its completion
—the more especially as, owing to the discovery of so many new species since its commence-
ment, it has extended far beyond its expected limits. I am also especially indebted to those
persons connected with its production, by whose assistance I have been enabled to bring so
great an undertaking to a satisfactory close. To my artist Mr. Richter, to Mr. Prince, and
to Mr. Bayfield (all names connected with my former works), I owe many thanks. To the
projectors and publisher of ‘Curtis's Botanical Magazine’ I am likewise indebted for many
hints and for permission to copy parts of some of their plates of the flowering plants of those
districts of South America which are frequented by Humming-Birds. In case the merits of
this work should be unknown to some of my readers, I mention that it is generally acknow-
ledged its production reflects equal credit upon its Editors Sir William Jackson Hooker and
Mr. Smith, the artist Mr. Fitch, and its publisher Mr. Lovell Reeve:

Numerous attempts had been made at various times to give something like a representation
of the glittermg hues with which this group of birds are adorned; but all had ended in disap-
pointment, and the subject seemed so fraught with difficulty that I at first despaired of its
accomplishment. I determined, however, to make the trial, and, after a series of lengthened,
troublesome, and costly experiments, I have, I trust, partially, if not completely succeeded.
Similar attempts were simultaneously carried on in America by W. M. L. Baily, Esq., who
with the utmost kindness and liberality explained his process to me; and although I have not
adopted it, I must in fairness admit that it is fully as successful as my own. I shall always
entertain a lively remembrance of the pleasant day I spent with this gentleman in Philadelphia.
It was in his company that I first saw a living Humming-Bird, in a garden which has become
classic ground to all true Americans, from the pleasing associations connected with its former
possessor, the great and good Bartram, and from its having been one of the haunts of the cele-
brated Wilson, than whom no one has written more pleasingly on the only species of this family

which inhabits that part of North America, the Trochilus Colubris.

It now becomes my pleasing duty to place on record the very valuable assistance in the production

of this work with which I have been favoured by the Directors of Public Museums and private