Fourteen species have been recognized in the United States, and 

 one migrates as far north as Alaska in the summer. They have 

 long, slender bills, and obtain their food, which consists of both 

 nectar from flowers and, in many cases, small insects, by heli- 

 coptering in front of the blooms and dipping their tongues into 

 their recesses. They build exquisite little nests, often only about 

 the diameter of half a hen's egg, composed of delicate materials 

 neatly woven together into a cup. These they delight in placing 

 on the crowns of tiny seedlings about three feet tall. 7he mothers 

 are not only bold but fearless, and will buzz at you or even 

 dive-bomb you if you disturb them or approach their nests too 

 closely or touch their two tiny white eggs. The chicks when 

 hatched are about the size of the nail of your little finger, and 

 the full-grown birds, deprived of their feathers, may, in some 

 smaller species like the Calliope, be about the size of a large 

 bumblebee. 



Yet these minutenesses migrate back and forth between North 

 and South America annually. In full flight hummingbirds have 

 been observed to have a speed of thirty miles per hour or more 

 for short distances, and they may average more than sixty miles 

 per hour with strong tail winds. Most migrating birds "hedgehop" 

 on their tremendous journeys, staying by the courses of rivers or 

 along coasts, but some — among them certain hummingbirds — 

 cross seas and parts of oceans. Some, on the west coast, ap- 

 parently cut straight across from the region of Jalisto on the 

 Mexican coast to Ecuador in South America — a distance of some 

 twelve hundred miles over the ocean. How, we would like to 

 know, does an object only the size of a bumblebee store within 

 itself enough fuel to produce the energy to keep its wings 

 beating at the rate of about ninety "revolutions" (or ups-and- 

 downs) per second long enough to traverse this distance without 

 stopping? This is a question that has not been answered and 

 that, like the flight of the bumblebee (which aerodynamicists 

 have "proved" cannot fly at all but which has been doing so for 

 geological eons), does not at present fall within our under- 

 standing of mechanics or even of logic. 



The mammals in this province are not often seen, though there 

 are plenty, and some extremely odd ones. Jaguar occasionally 

 wander north into this province; and there are ocelot, a small 

 blotched and spotted cat; jaguarundi, an attenuated, low-slung, 

 long-tailed, dark brown cat; coatimundis, a form of the raccoon 

 family; as well as puma and cacomistles or "ring-tailed cats," 

 another member of the raccoon family. These mostly live in the 

 isolated and forested uplands of the southern block of mountain 

 ranges. 



Despite its dense chaparrals, scrub-covered deserts, and mon- 

 tane forests, this province is most intimately connected with the 

 ocean that bathes its shores, and from which daily mists roll 

 inshore. Though storms are just as furious here as in the Atlantic, 

 the Pacific does indeed usually seem to live up to its name. 

 Sometimes its surface is absolutely smooth for days on end, so 

 that the multitudinous pelicans, ducks, and other diving birds 

 that cruise up and down its beadies leave an endlessly dissipating 

 network of V-shaped wavelets upon its surface. The sea here is 

 alive with subaqueous life. 



MARINE FUNSTERS AND FIGHTERS 



While the waters off the coast of this province teem with both 

 commercial and game fish, it is another group of sea creatures 

 that here most forcibly imposes itself upon the attention of even 

 the casual visitor; and more so here than anywhere else around 

 the edge of our continent. This group is the cetaceans or whales. 



If we use the second and commoner of these names for these 

 mammals, everyone immediately thinks of the vast leviathans 

 that are hunted commercially — the mighty Blue, Finner, Sei, 

 Humpback, and the other rorquals, the Sperm, the Bowhead, and 

 the black Right Whale. Most of these, including even occasionally 

 the Blue, do appear off this coast, but they are seldom if ever 

 seen from shore. However, there are other members of the order 

 of Cetacea that are in almost daily view. These are of two kinds: 

 the Gray Whale or Devil Fish, and the dolphins. 



The former, which grows to a length of about forty-five feet, 

 used once to migrate annually down and then up the whole 

 length of the Pacific coast of this continent in enormous numbers, 

 keeping among the great kelp beds or even between them and 

 the shore. This is one of the most primitive whales and belongs 

 to the group having baleen instead of teeth — i.e., the rorquals, 

 rights, and the Humpback. However, it lacks a back fin and it 

 has only two or four deep longitudinal folds under its throat. 

 The young when born are about seventeen feet long and have 

 regular lines of hairs all over their heads. In color these animals 

 are mottled or dappled gray, and they are often also covered 

 with many pale scars, since they delight in rubbing themselves 

 against rocks to get rid of whale lice and other external parasites; 

 and unlike almost all other whales, they come right inshore and 

 gambol in the surf. These mammals used to pass these shores in 

 enormous numbers twice a year and were the basis of a special 

 whaling industry during the latter half of the last century. The 

 commerce so depleted their numbers that they became "extinct" 

 on our coasts in 1895. However, there apparently had always 

 been two great groups of them, one of which used the North 

 American coast, the other (discovered by Roy Chapman Andrews 

 in the 1920's in Korea) the east Asiatic. 



Shortly before World War II they again put in an appearance 

 on our coasts and now, due to careful protection, are once more 

 quite numerous and have become a regular sight as they pass to 

 and fro between the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Baja Cali- 

 fornia, where they winter. In the latter confined area they have 

 been rather intensively studied in recent years, notably by 

 Dr. P.D.White, who has endeavored to record their heartbeats 

 and to study their other physiological processes. These whales 

 were called "devil fish" by the old-time whalers because they 

 put up a terrific fight and are mean and dangerous, especially 

 when among the kelp beds. Unlike most other whales, they 

 would deliberately attack the small whaling shallops, particularly 

 those that were painted white, and they both used their heads 

 to ram and their tails to flail men in the water. 



It is the dolphins, however, that are most prominent among 

 the whales of this area. Any day hundreds of them may be seen, 

 both close inshore and out at sea, leaping in what appears to be 

 pure exuberance. There are numerous species here too, including 

 the Killer Whale and the Blackfish (both of which are only large 

 dolphins or Delphinidae). Most numerous is the Common 

 Dolphin (Delphinus delphis), which is a prodigious jumper, but 

 is beaten handsomely in this respect by the little slender Spotted 

 Dolphin (Stenella graffmani). There is an excellent sea aquarium 

 at Palos Verdes where blackfish and these two species of dolphins 

 were kept in a huge tank. All three showed a high degree of 

 intelligence — in fact, scientists today claim that cetaceans rank 

 next to humans in this respect — and performed all manner of 

 agile tricks on demand to the delight of visitors. The Common 

 Dolphin can jump to a height of twenty feet to take a fish from 



A White-winged Dove, an inhabitant of the dry valleys of 

 the southern and eastern part of this province. 



250 



