HUMMING-BIRDS 23 



which one of his brothers, Francis Rodes, was hving. 

 He made many interesting observations on the birds of 

 the islands and afterwards, with his brother Edward, 

 contributed a valuable paper on the Birds of St. Croix 

 to the first volume of the Ibis. He was strongly attracted 

 by the beauty of the tropical fauna, which he saw then 

 ■for the first time — 



I think it is quite worth crossing the Atlantic to see 

 Humming-birds. No pen can describe and no pencil 

 depict the suddeimess with which the little fairy appears 

 before you, the rapidity with which, on wings whirring 

 Uke a cotton mill, he visits flower after flower, and then 

 when you least expect it, away he shoots in pursuit of a 

 rival. AU this while (about thirty seconds) you are 

 holding your breath for fear of blowing him away. 

 However, his glittering feathers are quite unseen by men 

 on such occasions ; one may catch a glimpse of their 

 sheen when he happens to mount aloft on a dead tama- 

 rind bough and draw his primaries through his mandibles, 

 but then it just depends upon whether he and you are 

 relatively in the right position for the light.* 



An interesting note relating to Humming-birds is 

 recorded in a letter written to his brother : — 



I think the only other ornithological occurrence of 

 interest that I have met with is that the other day I saw 

 a Humming-bird fairly caught in a spider's web. The 

 bird came into my room and went furiously spinning 

 round and round the ceiling ; at length it touched a 

 pretty big spider's web, and was quite powerless. The 

 net was, luckily for the bird, an old, deserted one and 

 very much tattered ; therefore after hanging for some 

 seconds, if not minutes, a series of violent struggles 

 released it. I caught the bird subsequently and found 

 its feathers quite bound up with the web. It has been 

 often asserted by the old writers that Humming-birds 



* Letter to T. Southwell, December 8, 1857. 



