Humming- Birds. 2 1 3 



same way, for even in the most windy districts they 

 never appear to learn to guide themselves ; and I 

 have often seen a butterfly endeavouring to reach 

 an isolated flower blown from it a dozen times 

 before it finally succeeded or gave up the contest. 

 Birds when shaping their course, unless young and 

 inexperienced, always make allowance for the force 

 of the wind. Humming-birds often fly into open 

 rooms, impelled apparently by a fearless curiosity, 

 and may then be chased about until they drop ex- 

 hausted or are beaten down and caught, and, as 

 Gould says, " if then taken into the hand, they 

 almost immediately feed on any sweet, or pump up 

 any liquid that may be offered to them, without 

 betraying either fear or resentment at the previous 

 treatment." Wasps and bees taken in the same 

 way endeavour to sting their captor, as most people 

 know from experience, nor do they cease struggling 

 violently to free themselves ; but the dragon-fly is 

 like the humming-bird, and is no sooner caught 

 after much ill-treatment, than it will greedily devour 

 as many flies and mosquitoes as one likes to offer 

 it. Only in beings very low in the scale of nature 

 do we see the instinct of self-preservation in this 

 extremely simple condition, unmixed with reason or 

 feeling, and so transient in its effects. The same 

 insensibility to danger is seen when humming-birds 

 are captured and confined in a room, and when, 

 before a day is over, they will flutter about their 

 captor's face and even take nectar from his lips. 



Some observers have thought that humming- 

 birds come nearest to humble-bees in their actions. 

 I do not think so. Mr. Bates writes : " They do 



