MY HUMMING BIRDS. 103 



middle of the channel. This might lead to something or it 

 might not, it was worth remembering at least. 



Now came the whirl of the youth's first ambitious strug- 

 gles for excellence and success among his fellows. Bird- 

 nesting gave way to Euclid, and idle strollings through the 

 scented woods to scanning the Bucolics. For a long time 

 my gentle playmates of the sun and flowers gave way to 

 black-letter folios and smoky lamplight. I thought I had 

 almost forgotten these once beloved children of the Fret 

 Life ; but no sooner had I returned among them with some 

 leisure on my hands, than my old love returned my old 

 passion broke forth once more with a deeper and widening 

 enthusiasm. Every living thing came to me now with lives 

 that bore a higher meaning, gleams of which were beginning 

 to visit me. 



It was no longer as an idle boy or a sportsman merely, 

 that I went forth into nature it was as a naturalist, in earn- 

 est for facts! The Principia had cured me of romance, and 

 I was wild for demonstration. 



An accident, about this time, attracted my attention to 

 humming birds in particular again. Entering the library 

 one morning, I saw, to my delight, a humming bird flutter- 

 ing against the upper part of a window, the lower sash of 

 which was raised. I advanced softly, but rapidly as possi- 

 ble, and let down the sash. I had been taught the necessity 

 of such caution long ago, by a bitter experience, for out of 

 more than a dozen I had attempted to catch in this very 

 room to which they were enticed by the vases of flowers 

 within I had not succeeded in keeping one alive beyond a 

 moment or two after I had seized it for, if startled too sud- 

 denly, ere there had been time enough for them to realize 

 the deception of the glass, they invariably flew against it 

 with such violence as to kill themselves ; thus my childish 

 eagerness had always robbed me of what I most coveted, al- 

 though it seemed already mine. 



This time, however, I succeeded in securing an uninjured 



