48 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



stone's-throw when he is by, except of course in their 

 nests. Their ceaseless motion and their curious inde- 

 pendence of rest strikingly recall the little humming- 

 birds whom I have often watched in like manner, whir- 

 ring past me from flower to flower in tropical gardens ; 

 and, strange as it sounds to say so, the swallows and the 

 humming-birds are indeed first cousins to one another, 

 though so very different in outward shape and plumage. 

 Indeed, nowhere else are appearances more deceitful. 

 The humming-birds are not at all related to the sun- 

 birds of India and Africa, which are so like them as to 

 be colloquially called by their name ; while they are 

 closely related to the very unlike swallows, being, in 

 fact, American swallows which have never taken to 

 migrating very far north, and have accordingly adapted 

 themselves instead to a continuous tropical or sub- 

 tropical existence. 



Prince Lucien Bonaparte was the first to show that 

 the humming-birds were really most nearly allied to our 

 dingy northern swifts. Of all the swallow family, the 

 swifts are the most ceaselessly active and possess the 

 widest relative stretch of wing. Though a full-grown 

 bird usually weighs scarcely one ounce, it measures 

 eighteen inches from tip to tip of the pinions. No one 

 ever saw a swift perching on a tree or hopping about 

 the ground : except when asleep, it is almost ceaselessly 

 upon the wing. It catches its food flying ; it drinks as 

 it skims .the surface of the water ; it picks up the 

 materials for its nest while sweeping among the mea- 

 dows close to the ground. Now, if you transfer some of 

 these active, restless, insect-catching swifts to the tropics, 

 what will be the natural result ? A large proportion of 



