GIANTS AND DWARFS 89 



two marmosets lived, and one of these little 

 monkeys seized it by the head, and it was only 

 rescued just in time. In spite of this exciting 

 adventure, it had not been put in with its 

 companions a quarter of an hour before it 

 was hovering in the front of the glass-fronted 

 cage, and trying to peep into the lens of a 

 camera which was being used in an attempt 

 to photograph some of these birds. 



But this very cool behaviour has been 

 noticed in humming - birds when they are 

 wild ; they will attack birds of any size when 

 these come near a nest, and they show very 

 little fear of people. Most likely this is 

 because very few enemies can get at them ; 

 no hawk has any chance with such little 

 dodgers on the wing, and when perched they 

 are so small that they do not attract much 

 notice from other enemies, so that they really 

 do not know what it is to be afraid. 



The giant ostrich, on the other hand, is 

 very nervous ; he is very hard to shoot, as he 

 is so tall and can keep such a good look-out, 

 and he is naturally so timid that a very 

 common cause of death among tame ostriches 

 is their being scared and bolting off madly 



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