t, and
continue to yield for upwards of forty years. The green leaves, when
picked, are carefully spread out in the sun to dry. The name of "coca"
is bestowed on them only when they are dried and prepared for use.

Some writers, objecting altogether to stimulating narcotics, assert that
the use of coca produces all the evil results of opium; but this, from
the evidence of many enlightened travellers, seems not to be the case.
Taken immoderately, no doubt it is injurious,--as is tea, coffee,
tobacco, or wine; but used as it generally is by the natives, it is to
them a great blessing. The valleys, however, most suitable for its
cultivation are reputed to be unhealthy.

So valuable was coca considered in the days of the Incas, that divine
honours were paid to it, and it was especially the property of the
sovereign. Even at the present day the miners of Peru throw a quid of
coca against the hard veins of ore, under the belief that they are
thereby more easily worked. The natives also sometimes put coca in the
mouth of the dying man, believing that if he can taste the fragrant leaf
it is a sure sign of his future happiness.

Its moderate use is considered wholesome; and European travellers who
have chewed coca state that they could thus endure long abstinence from
food without inconvenience, and that it enabled them to ascend
precipitous mountainsides with a feeling of lightness and elasticity,
and without losing breath.

PART THREE, CHAPTER TEN.

HUMMING-BIRDS (TROCHILIDAE) OF THE CORDILLERAS AND WESTERN COAST.

We should scarcely have expected to find the smallest specimens of the
feathered tribe inhabiting the same region as the mighty, coarse-feeding
condor; but whereas the latter pounces down on his carrion banquet into
the plains below, the little humming-bird seeks his food from the bright
flowers which clothe the mountainside, or the minute insects which fly
amid them.

Humming-birds are found throughout the whole of the New World, from the
borders of the great Canadian lakes, along the entire range of the
Cordilleras, down to the shores of Tierra del Fuego; also in the West
India Islands, and over the whole wide-extending plains watered by the
Orinoco, the Amazon, and other great rivers which empty themselves into
the Atlantic. The greater number of the species exist about the
equator, and, as might be expected, diminish as we proceed either to the
south or north.

They obtain their name on accou