22 ON BOSTON COMMON. 



birds spend several weeks about our flower- 

 beds. 



It would be iiard for the latter to find a more 

 agreeable stopping-place in the whole course of 

 their southward journey. What could they ask 

 better than beds of tuberoses, Japanese lilies, 

 Nicotiana (against the use of which they mani- 

 fest not the slightest scruple), petunias, and the 

 like ? Having in mind the Duke of Argyll's 

 assertion that " no bird can ever fly backwards," 1 

 I have more than once watched these humming- 

 birds at their work on purpose to see whether 

 they would respect the noble Scotchman's dic- 

 tum. I am compelled to report that they ap- 

 peared never to have heard of his theory. At 

 any rate they very plainly did fly tail foremost ; 

 and that not only in dropping from a blossom, 

 in which case the seeming flight might have 

 been, as the duke maintains, an optical illusion 

 merely, but even while backing out of the 

 flower-tube in an upward direction. They are 

 commendably catholic in their tastes. I saw 

 one exploring the disk of a sun-flower, in com- 

 pany with a splendid monarch butterfly. Pos- 

 sibly he knew that the sunflower was just then 

 in fashion. Only a few minutes earlier the same 

 bird or another like him had chased an 

 English sparrow out of the Garden, across Ar- 



i The Reign of Law, p. 140. 



