THE HUMMING-BIRD. 351 



Very great doubts may be entertained as to the song, or supposed 

 song, of humming-birds. Although I was in the midst of humming- 

 birds, I never heard the least attempt at it. Still, the great French 

 naturalist talks of singing humming-birds ; but I imagine that he 

 must have been wrongly informed, as the humming-birds of which 

 he writes (and he had his information from an eye-witness) were 

 only young birds a few weeks out of the nest. Now, we all know 

 that this age, both in man and in birds, is too immature for the pro- 

 duction of song. I am not a believer in humming-bird melody. If 

 it do exist, it must come from a species hitherto unknown ; and with 

 a guttural formation quite different from that which obtains in the 

 species already examined. These guttural parts are alike in the whole 

 known family ; and thus, if one bird can sing, they all ought to sing. 



I can state positively, from long experience, that humming-birds 

 are not gregarious in the usual acceptation of the word. Their 

 incubation is always solitary ; and although many dozens of them 

 may be seen feeding at the scarlet flowers, for example, on the tree 

 which the French call " Bois Immortel," those birds will have been 

 seen to arrive, one by one, at the flowers, and to have retired from 

 them, one by one, when the repast was over. 



Neither the monkey nor the humming-bird, on account of the 

 formation of the feet in this, and of the hands in that, can labour 

 on the ground for their food. Yet, when they are in the right 

 region to acquire it, there is a visible difference in their mode of 

 proceeding. Thus the monkey sits on the branch, and in that 

 position supplies its wants with what the tree produces. But the 

 humming-bird must be on wing whilst it extracts food from the 

 flowers ; and never can it possibly be seen to take nourishment 

 whilst perching on a twig. 



This rule is absolute for the humming-bird. 



The vault of heaven offers a large supply of food to these birds. 

 It is interesting to see how they satisfy the call of hunger, by 

 invading the columns of insects which frequent the circumambient 

 atmosphere. Darting from the shade with the rapidity of a meteor, 

 the humming-bird stops short at the column, and there, apparently 

 motionless, it regales itself, and then departs as swiftly as it had 

 approached. 



