HUMMING-BIRDS 23 



which one of his brothers, Francis Rodes, was Hving. 

 He made many interesting observations on the birds of 

 the islands and afterwards, with his brother Edward, 

 contributed a valuable paper on the Birds of St. Croix 

 to the fii'st volume of the Ibis. He was strongly attracted 

 by the beauty of the tropical fauna, which he saw then 

 for the first time — 



I think it is quite worth crossing the Atlantic to see 

 Humming-birds. No pen can describe and no pencil 

 depict the suddenness with which the little fairy appears 

 before you, the rapidity with which, on wings whirring 

 like a cotton mill, he visits flower after flower, and then 

 when you least expect it, away he shoots in pursuit of a 

 rival. All this while (about thirty seconds) you are 

 holding your breath for fear of blowing him away. 

 However, his ghttering feathers are quite unseen by men 

 on such occasions ; one may catch a glimpse of their 

 sheen when he happens to mount aloft on a dead tama- 

 rind bough and draw his primaries through his mandibles, 

 but then it just depends upon whether he and you are 

 relatively in the right position for the light.* 



An interesting note relating to Humming-birds is 

 recorded in a letter written to his brother : — 



I think the only other ornithological occurrence of 

 interest that I have met with is that the other day I saw 

 a Humming-bird fairly caught in a spider's web. The 

 bird came into my room and went furiously spinning 

 round and round the ceiling; at length it touched a 

 pretty big spider's web, and was quite powerless. The 

 net was, luckily for the bird, an old, deserted one and 

 very much tattered ; therefore after hanging for some 

 seconds, if not minutes, a series of violent struggles 

 released it. I caught the bird subsequently and found 

 its feathers quite bound up with the web. It has been 

 often asserted by the old writers that Humming-birds 



* Letter to T. Southwell , December 8, 1857. 



