Humming- Birds. . 209 



some diminutive, curiously-shaped, bright-tinted, 

 flying reptile of arboreal habits that lived in some 

 far-off epoch in the world's history. It is not, at 

 all events, maintained by anyone that all birds 

 sprang originally from one reptilian stock ; and the 

 true position of humming-birds in a natural classi- 

 fication has not yet been settled, for no intermediate 

 forms exist connecting them with any other group. 

 To the ordinary mind they appear utterly unlike all 

 other feathered creatures, and as much entitled to 

 stand apart as, for instance, the pigeon and ostrich 

 families. It has been maintained by some writers 

 that they are anatomically related to the swifts, 

 although the differences separating the two families 

 appear so great as almost to stagger belief in this 

 notion. Now, however, the very latest authority 

 on this subject, Dr. Schufeldt, has come to the 

 conclusion that swifts are only greatly modified 

 Passeres, and that the humming-birds should form 

 an order by themselves. 



Leaving this question, and regarding them simply 

 with the ornithological eye that does not see far 

 below the surface of things, when we have sufficiently 

 admired the unique beauty and marvellous velocity 

 of humming-birds, there is little more to be said 

 about them. They are lovely to the eye in- 

 describably so ; and it is not strange that Gould 

 wrote rapturously of the time when he was at length 

 "permitted to revel in the delight of seeing the 

 humming-bird in a state of nature." The feeling, 

 he wrote, which animated him with regard to these 

 most wonderful works of creation it was impossible 

 to describe, and could only be appreciated by those 



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