Year: 1878

AhO ABHNai vi AAN bAAh
is utterly unlike that of any other living
creature. We are admiring some bril-
liant and beautiful flower, when there
suddenly appears before us a small, dark
object suspended, as it were, between
four short, black threads, meeting each
other in a cross. For an instant it shows
in front of the flower again, another
Instant. and, emitting momentary fash
of emerald and sapphire light, it is van
ishing, lessening in tie distance as it
shoots away to a speck that the eye can
not take note Of Indeed, the little
atom of life comes and goes with the
rapidity Of gnat or dragon fly. Au-
dubon tells us that the small size of the
ruby humming bird renders it impossi-
BILE to follow its flight with the eye for
more than fifty yards. a person stand
ing in the garden will hear the ehumming
of their wings, and see the little birds
themselves within a few feet of him at
one moment the next they will be out
of sight and hearing. Gould tells us
that the tiny creature lives in the air,
like gnat or a butterfly. 1t often
mounts up the towering trees, and then
shoots off like little meteor at right
angle. At other times it will gently
buzz among the. flowers upon the
ground. The next moment it is how
ering over diminutive weed, and then
it is seen at distance of forty yards,
whittier it has vanished with the quick
ness of thought. Prof. Wallace has de-
voted a considerable period to minute
study of the habits of the humming bird,
and has come to the conclusion that it
is tropical swift, or swallow, modified
in long course of many generations
from its original ancestor, but retaining
its old characteristics of an essentially
insect feeder. 1t is true that down to
the time of Button it was believed that
the humming bird lived solely on the
nectar of flowers, but since then it has
been ascertained beyond all possibility
of doubt that it feeds largely, and in
some cases wholly, on insects. The
birds have been seen in winter picking
dead flies out of the webs of spiders.


Bullock, in Mexico, and Waterton, in
New Guinea, saw them catch small but
terfiies, and found their stomschs flied
with insects. Those who have watched
their habits have observed them sitting
like fly catchers on a twig, dalting off
and returning. Mr.. Goss, one of our
most accomplished naturalists, tells us
that all the humming birds have, more
or less, a habit when in flight of pausing
and quickly turning in the air. "That
the object of these quick turns" he
adds, "is the capture of insects am
sure, having watched one thus engaged
pretty close to me. observed it care


fully, and distinctly saw the minute
dies which it pursued and caught, and
heard repeatedly the swapping of its
beak. My presence scarcely disturbed
it, if at ALL" Moreover, is seems that
however long may be the bill of the
adult humming bird, the young bird has
a little, short, broad, triangular bill,


like swift It is evident, in short,
that the swift is, to use Mr.. Wallace's
words, pure aerial insect hunter, and
that its short, broad bill and wide cape
are essential to its mode of life. The
humming birds, on the other hand, are
floral insect hunters. They seek their
prey among the gorgeous masses of
creepers that hang from bough to bough
in the trackless forests of the tropics.
They dart in and out between bud apd
leaf, between blossom and stalk, as the
dragon fly fits among the sedge and bull
rush. But the fiction that they subsist
on honey and nectar alone must be ban
ished, like other pretty fables, to the
region Of myth. The humming bird is
as ravenous creature in its way as the
robin. No doubt robin in winter,
when the ground is hard with frost, will
not despise bread crumbs but his real
delight is in caterpillar, or fat earth
worm, or little plump slug. Similarly


the exquisite, dainty humming bird is q
carniverous being. London Telegraph