VERVAIN HUMMING-BIRD. 133 



minutes put an end to its sufferings and my ex- 

 pectations. 



Several times I have enclosed a nest of eggs in 

 a gauzed cage, with the dam, taken in the act of 

 sitting ; but in no case did she survive twenty- 

 four hours' confinement, or take the slightest 

 notice of her nest. When engaged in the attempt 

 to domesticate a colony of Polytmus, an opportunity 

 offered to add this minute species to my aviary. 

 For at that time two large tamarind-trees very near 

 the house were in full blossom, and round them the 

 Vervain Humming-bird was swarming. I never saw 

 so many of this tribe at once ; they flocked together, 

 as Sam truly observed, " like bees," and the air re- 

 sounded with their humming, as if in the neigh- 

 bourhood of a hive. We caught several with the 

 net, but could make nothing of them ; they were 

 indomitably timid. When turned into the room, 

 they shot away into the loftiest angle of the ceiling, 

 and there hovered motionless, or sometimes slowly 

 turning as if on a pivot, their wings all the time 

 vibrating with such extraordinary velocity as to 

 be visible only as a semicircular film on each side. 

 The fact that the extent of the vibration reached 

 180°, (or so nearly that it seemed to me such,) shews 

 the immense power of the small muscles by which 

 the wings are put in motion. Neither of our other 

 species approaches either the rapidity or extent of 

 this oscillation ; and hence with this bird alone does 

 the sound produced by the vibration of the wings 

 acquire the sharpness of an insect's hum. The 

 noise produced by the hovering of Polytmus is a 



