BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



quarters in the tropics. One or all of these quali- 

 ties must have reduced competition with enemies 

 to a minimum. 



If we go to the tropics of Africa and India we 

 find the hummingbirds' niche partly filled. High 

 up in the Himalayas I have more than once been 

 startled at seeing apparently a hummingbird dart 

 past toward a mass of rhododendron blossoms. 

 It always proved to be a tiny sunbird, glowing in 

 the richest of iridescent hues, and seeking insects 

 and nectar in the heart of flowers. They have 

 never learned to hover, however, but cling to 

 stalks and reach as far as they can for their food. 

 The resemblance in size and color is merely acci- 

 dental, for sunbirds are not at all related either to 

 swifts or hummingbirds. 



We have no clue whatever as to ancestry. No 

 fossil hummingbird has ever been found. Of the 

 billions which have lived and hummed and died 

 through all the ages, not one has ever been em- 

 balmed in mud or sand — thistledowns are not to 

 be looked. for in the heart of boulders. 



Seventy years gone, Thoreau made this note in 

 his journal: "Its hum was heard afar at first, like 

 that of a large bee, bringing a larger summer. 

 This sight and sound would make me think I was 

 in the tropics — in Demerara or Maracaibo." 



Thoreau never had the good fortune to visit 

 Demerara, but I longed for him once when I had 

 an astonishing experience in the jungle of that very 

 Colony. On the twenty-sixth of a November I 



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