a 
oa ON BOSTON COMMON. 
birds spend several weeks about our flower- 
beds. 
It would be hard for the latter to find a more 
agreeable stopping-place in the whole course of 
their southward journey. What could they ask 
better than beds of tuberoses, Japanese lilies, 
Nicotiana (against the use of which they mani- 
fest not the slightest scruple), petunias, and the 
like? Having in mind the Duke of Argyll’s 
assertion that “ no bird can ever fly backwards,” 4 
I have more than once watched these humming- 
birds at their work on purpose to see whether 
they would respect the noble Scotchman’s dic- 
tum. Iam compelled to report that they ap- 
peared never to have heard of his theory. At 
any rate they very plainly did fly tail foremost ; 
and that not only in dropping from a blossom, 
— in which case the seeming flight might have 
been, as the duke maintains, an optical illusion 
merely, — but even while backing out of the 
flower-tube in an upward direction. They are 
commendably catholic in their tastes. I saw 
one exploring the disk of a sun-flower, in com- 
pany with a splendid monarch butterfly. Pos- 
sibly he knew that the sunflower was just then 
in fashion. Only a few minutes earlier the same 
bird — or another like him —had chased an 
English sparrow out of the Garden, across Ar- 
1 The Reign of Law, p. 140. 
