50 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
to our knowledge of the ornithology of those islands. 
The gun looked, as I said, like a cane. The bar- 
rel was slender, and painted to resemble a stick of 
mahogany ; the stock unscrewed, and could be put in 
the pocket; and as the ramrod went inside the barrel, 
where it was secured by a tompion, and hammer and 
trigger shut down out of sight, this gun made a very 
convenient walking-stick. Doubly valued by me. on 
account of having belonged to my friend and to a natu- 
ralist whom all the world knew, this gun accompanied 
me in all my wanderings. It was an excellent arm, and 
I have shot more than five hundred birds with it alone. 
Not only on humming-birds, but on larger game, did 
I try its shooting qualities. For hummers it needed 
but a taste of powder and a thimbleful of dust shot. 
Not for the collecting of specimens merely was my 
mission; I was to obtain all the information possible 
of the habits of the birds — of their Zome life. It was 
in this study of them in their forest retreats that I took 
keen delight, and considered the shooting of them as 
a necessary evil to procure their identification. 
In one of my daily rambles for this purpose, I en- 
tered a gloomy glen in the deep forest. Soon as my 
eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I espied a 
humming-bird dancing in the air. There was not a 
flower in sight, and he did not fly as when in pur- 
suit of nectar-bearing flowers, but hovered more on 
suspended wing, darting sidewise, backward and for- 
ward, with the body in an almost erect position. If 
through the deep shade a sunbeam slanted athwart 
' the glen, his throat gleamed like a ruby. Now, this 
fantastic dance was not for pleasure, but for food. I 
ascertained that at such times they are in pursuit of 
e 
