HUMMING-BIRDS. 131 



the possibility of following them with the eye further 

 than fifty or sixty yards, without great difficulty. A 

 person standing in a garden by the side of a common 

 althaea in bloom, will hear the humming of their wings 

 and see the little birds themselves within a few feet of 

 him one moment, while the next they will be out of 

 sight and hearing. Mr. Gould, who visited North 

 America in order to see living humming-birds while 

 preparing his great work on the family, remarks, that the 

 action of the wings reminded him of a piece of machinery 

 acted upon by a powerful spring. When poised before 

 a flower, the motion is so rapid that a hazy semicircle of 

 indistinctness on each side of the bird is all that is 

 perceptible. Although many short intermissions of rest 

 are taken, the bird may be said to live in the air an 

 element in which it performs every kind of evolution 

 with the utmost ease, frequently rising perpendicularly, 

 flying backward, pirouetting or dancing off, as it were, 

 from place to place, or from one part of a tree to another, 

 sometimes descending, at others ascending. It often 

 mounts up above the towering trees, and then shoots 

 off like a little meteor at a right angle. At other times 

 it gently buzzes away among the little flowers near 

 the ground ; at one moment it is poised over a 

 diminutive weed, at the next it is seen at a distance of 

 forty yards, whither it has vanished with the quickness 

 of thought. 



The Rufous Flame-bearer, an exquisite species found 

 on the west coast of North America, is thus described 

 by Mr. Nuttall : " When engaged in collecting its 

 accustomed sweets, in all the energy of life, it seemed 

 like a breathing gem, a magic carbuncle of flaming fire, 



K 2 



