HUMMING-BIRD. 



they are applied. Neither of the birds alight much, 

 if at all, upon the ground ; but the swift's foot is adapt- 

 ed for clinging to inequalities in the surfaces of 

 stones and walls, and not for perching upon trees, 

 which the swift never does. The foot of the hum- 

 ming-bird is on the other hand decidedly a perching 

 foot, and they always alight and repose upon trees, 

 bushes, or vegetables of some description or other ; 

 and it is said that some of them repose suspended by 

 the claws, with the head undermost, which is the 

 position of sleep among some of the climbing birds, 

 and also of the bats and sloths among mammalia. 



Small as these birds are, they are exceedingly bold 

 and pugnacious, attacking not only birds many times 

 their own size, but offering battle to man himself, when 

 he ventures to invade their nesting places. If the 

 nest is approached while the female is sitting, she will 

 fly out, and dart across the intruder with great rapid- 

 ity, and utter the same sort of sound as a bee does 

 when it menaces an attack in passing. If no direct 

 injury is offered to the nest, the female returns to it 

 in a very short time, and does not again quit it until 

 a new movement is made by the observer. They 

 are, indeed, very little afraid either of birds or of the 

 near presence of man, under any circumstances ; and 

 they have no great occasion to fear, because when 

 they are strongly excited, their motion on the wing 

 is so rapid, that the small ones especially can hardly 

 be seen. They may be heard, however, for they 

 utter a sort of scream, not very unlike the screech of 

 the swifts, but considerably more shrill and piercing. 

 From the small prey upon which they feed, their 

 sight must be very keen ; and as the sight of long 

 billed birds is never so microscopic as that of short 

 billed ones, they probably see at greater distances 

 than at first thought we would be apt to suppose. 

 They are said to aim at the eyes of those birds which 

 they attack ; and in this way their attacks must be 

 much more formidable than their size would lead us 

 to believe, because the point of their weapon is ex- 

 ceedingly keen, and they drive onward with so much 

 velocity, that one stroke of it, taking full effect, would 

 be sufficient to quench the sight of an eagle. Their 

 pugnacity is not by any means confined to those'birds 

 and other animals from which they apprehend annoy- 

 ance ; for the males, at least those of the sume 

 species, fight desperately whenever they meet. On 

 these occasions they appear to be in a state of the 

 greatest excitement, with every muscle of their bodies 

 in the most intense action ; and though their combats 

 are carried on in the air only, they seldom give over 

 till one falls to the ground "exhausted, wounded, or 

 dead. 



The nests of birds which are so numerous, and dif- 

 fer so much from each other, may be supposed to 

 vary considerably in their sizes in proportion to 

 that of the bird ; and rather more than half an 

 inch in diameter may be taken as about the smallest. 

 It is always neatly constructed, but the mate- 

 rials vary in different localities, even with the same 

 species. The eggs are of course small, but not so 

 small in proportion to the size of the bird as the eggs 

 of many other genera ; the hatches are understood 

 not to be numerous, two and sometimes only one 

 being the number of eggs usually found in the nests ; 

 but they breed with a rapidity unknown in the case 

 of almost any other birds, the time of sitting being 

 about ten days, and the young being able to leave the 

 nest in a week after they break the shell. It is not 



known, however, whether all the species come for- 

 ward in the same short time, for the nests of compara- 

 tively few have been carefully examined. All that 

 have been examined, have been found placed on trees, 

 bushes, or vegetables of some sort or another, at a 

 considerable elevation above the ground. One in- 

 stance is mentioned of a humming-bird being taken 

 on her nest in Jamaica, and brought on board ship. 

 She was tame, allowing herself to be fed with honey, 

 and survived until she hatched her two young ones, 

 but died soon after, probably for want of the proper 

 kind of food. The young survived their mother, and 

 they were fed on the same substance as their mother 

 had been, which was then understood to be their pro- 

 per, and indeed their only food ; and perhaps this 

 also may have been the cause why they did not live 

 long after their arrival in England. In those coun- 

 tries, however, in which they are abundant, all at- 

 tempts at keeping in a domestic state, for any length 

 of time, have completely failed ; and it is natural to 

 suppose that such should be the case with birds which, 

 in a state of nature, are inhabitants of the free air ; 

 and, at the same time, so very excitable as these little 

 creatures unquestionably are. That they, or at least 

 some of the species of them, can brave the severity 

 of the weather in both extremities of America, we 

 have direct proof ; and as some also have been met 

 with very near the line of snow in central America, 

 perfectly at home, and not appearing to feel any in- 

 convenience, we may naturally suppose that they also 

 can bear a climate which is cold all the year round, 

 at least during the night, while the heat of the sun 

 beats strongly during the day, which is perhaps the 

 severest of all climates. 



Central America is, however, their proper place ; 

 and it seems to be something connected with the 

 character of the vegetation which makes it so. We 

 have evidence of this when we contrast North America 

 with the southern part of South America ; for there has 

 been only one or two species of humming-bird observed 

 to the northward of the Gulf of Mexico, or 30 north 

 latitude, while there are a good many not only under 

 the same parallel in South America, but 20 farther 

 to the southward. Now the character of North 

 American vegetation, and also that of the seasons, 

 ceases to be tropical at no great distance northward 

 of the Gulf of Mexico ; while in South America the 

 tropical character continues almost, if not altogether, 

 to the very southern extremity. Still, however, we 

 are not in possession of sufficient data for enabling 

 us to determine in a satisfactory manner why this 

 very singular genus of birds is found in the American 

 continent only, and in no other quarter of the world ; 

 for though, as we have said, there is some analogy 

 between them and the nectar suckers of the eastern 

 continent, that analogy is very slight, and does not 

 establish a single important character as common to 

 the two races. There is no such energy of character 

 about that bird, or almost indeed about any bird, 

 which is so great in proportion to its size, as that of 

 the humming-birds ; and until we go to the insect- 

 tribes, which have internal muscles acting to the 

 greatest possible advantage, to an advantage indeed 

 w hich cannot be obtained in the muscular structure of 

 any animal possessing an internal skeleton, we have 

 no instance of so great strength accompanying such 

 diminutive size as we find in the humming-birds. 



These curious little birds are not more remarkable 

 for the extreme brilliancy of the plumage, than they 



