THE HUMMING-BIRD. 125 
I have never read any thing in the annals of or- 
nithology that bears any similarity to this aquila- 
vulturian exhibition progressing through the vault 
of heaven. Verily, “ there is a freshness in it.” 
When we reflect that Mr Audubon is an Ame- 
rican; that he has lived the best part of his life in 
America ; that the two birds themselves were Ame- 
rican, and that their wonderful encounter took place 
in America, we Englishmen marvel much that Mr. 
Audubon did not allow the press of his own country 
to have the honour to impart to the world so asto- 
nishing an adventure. 
THE HUMMING-BIRD. 
Mr. Aupvusoy tells us, that in one week the young 
of the ruby-throated humming-bird are ready to fly. 
One would suppose, by this, that they must be 
hatched witha good coating of feathers to begin with. 
Old Dame Nature sometimes performs odd pranks. 
We are informed that our crooked-back Dicky 
the Third was born with teeth; and Ovid mentions 
the astonishingly quick growth of certain men. He 
says, in his account of the adventures of Captain 
Cadmus, who built Thebes, that the captain em- 
ployed some men as masons who had just sprung up 
out of the earth. 
I have read Mr. Audubon’s account of the growth 
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