332 STUFFED COMPARED TO LIVING BIRDS. 
I daresay hard epithets will be heaped upon 
me,—cruel man, hard-hearted savage, miserable 
destroyer, and similar epithets,—when I confess 
to shooting’ numbers of these burnished beauties. 
Some of them are before me at this moment as 
I write; but what miserable things are these 
stuffed remains, as compared to the living bird ! 
The brilliant crests are rigid and immoveable; 
the throat-feathers, that open and shut with a 
flash like coloured light, lose in the stillness of 
death all those charms so beautiful in life; the 
tail, clumsily spread, or bent similar to the 
abdomen of a wasp about to sting, no more re- 
sembles the same organ in the live bird, than a fan 
of peacock’s feathers is like to the expanded tail 
of that bird when strutting proudly in the sun. 
It is useless pleading excuses; two long days 
were occupied in shooting and skinning. The 
two species obtained on this occasion were the 
Red-backed Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus), 
often described as the Nootka Hummingbird, 
because it was first discovered in Nootka Sound, 
on the west side of Vancouver Island; the 
other, one of the smallest known species, called 
Calliope. This exquisite little bird is mainly 
conspicuous for its frill of minute pinnated feathers 
encircling the throat, of most delicate magenta 
