HUMMING-BIRDS. 23 



America, says that their flight is unlike that of any bird he had ever seen, and 

 quite different from what he had expected in fact, exactly the opposite. When 

 poised before any object, the tremulous motion of the wings is so rapid that the 

 eye cannot follow it, and a hazy semicircle of indistinctness on each side of the 

 bird is all that is perceptible. Their actions strongly reminded him of a piece of 

 machinery acted upon by a powerful spring, and although frequent intermissions 

 of rest are taken during the day, the bird may be said to live in the air an 

 element in which it performs every kind of evolution with the utmost ease, 

 frequently rising perpendicularly, flying backward, pirouetting or dancing off, as 

 it were. Mr. Gosse observes that humming-birds have more or less the habit of 

 pausing in the air and throwing the body into rapid and odd contortions, and he 

 noticed this especially with the long-tailed humming-bird, on account of the effect 

 which such motions have on the beautiful long feathers of the tail. He affirms 

 that in these evolutions the birds are engaged in catching insects in the air, and he 

 was close enough to them to see the tiny flies, and to hear the snapping of the 

 bird's bill as it captured them. It will be noticed above that Gould speaks of the 

 capacity of humming-birds for flying backwards. This power has frequently been 

 doubted, and Mr. Terry observes that " the Duke of Argyll lays it down that no 

 bird can ever fly backwards. He mentions the humming-bird as appearing to do 

 so, but maintains that in reality it falls rather than flies, when, for instance, it 

 comes out of a tubular flower. But, while watching the motions of a humming- 

 bird, it occurred to me to test the dictum of the Duke ; and, unless my eyes were 

 altogether at fault, the bird did actually fly backwards. It was probing, one after 

 another, the blossoms of a petunia-bed, and more than once, when the flower 

 happened to be low down, it plainly rose rather than fell as it backed away from 

 it." Mr. Ridgway likewise says that he has observed the same thing, but he has 

 noticed that the backward motion is greatly assisted by a forward flirt of the 

 expanded tail, as the bird shifts from place to place or from one part of a tree to 

 another, sometimes descending, at others ascending. " It often towers up above 

 the trees," writes the last-named author, " and then shoots off", like a little meteor, 

 at a right angle ; at other times it quietly buzzes away among the flowers near the 

 ground ; at one moment it is poised over a diminutive weed, at the next it is seen 

 at a distance of forty yards, whither it has vanished with the quickness of thought. 

 During the heat of the day the shady retreats beneath the trees are very frequently 

 visited; in the morning and evening the sunny banks, the verandas, and other 

 exposed situations are more frequently resorted to." 



Humming-birds, as a rule, do not possess any kind of song, and their few 

 notes are of a twittering character. Mr. F. Stephens, describing the " feeding "-note 

 of Costa's humming-bird, says that the female, when feeding, keeps up a pretty 

 constant vocal noise, which somewhat resembles the buzz of the wings, and that 

 the feeding-note of the male is finer and not so frequent. " I think," he adds, 

 " that the males are the only ones who sing. The song is sweet and very low, but 

 if it is perfectly quiet around it can be distinctly heard for a distance of ten 

 yards. As might be expected from the size of the bird, it is in a very high key, 

 something like the sound produced by whistling between the teeth, very low, yet 

 at a high pitch. It might be called a warble, and I have heard it kept up for 



