OR, PLAIN TEACHING. 



123 



flew gracefully and in undulations ; the feathers 

 of its sides formed an elegant and aerial plume, 

 which, without exaggeration, oore no little re- 

 semblance to a brilliant meteor. Surprised, as- 

 tounded, enjoying an inexpressible gratification, 

 I devoured this splendid bird with my eyes ; 

 but my emotion was so great, that I forgot to 

 shoot at it, and did not recollect that I had a 

 gun in my hand till it was far away.* 



j(- Humming birds are the smallest 

 of the feathered tribes, some 

 being not much more than half 

 an inch in length. They are the 

 most active bf all known birds, 



19 



426. 



exceeding in this respect even 

 the swifts. They are still more 

 powerfully winged, in proportion 

 to their size, than those are ; and 

 there are no birds which have 

 the sternum, and the bones which 

 give firmness to the shoulder, 

 more finely developed. In fact, 

 the whole of their energy is 

 concentrated upon this part of 

 their organization, and their dif- 

 ferent styles of flight are equally 

 vigorous. 



Suspended in the air, and hovering over a 

 flower, their wings move with so much rapidity 

 that they are not seen, except as gleams of 

 light of different colours, but all radiant, as the 

 beams of the sun take them at those angles at 

 which they give out their different lustres ; and 

 while the rapid motion of the wings thus ren- 

 ders them invisible, except as gleams of light 

 playing around the little body of the bird, they 

 make a souifc. similar to jhat of the humming 

 produced by*the wings of bees and other m- 



• Koignt's Museum of Animate! Nature. 



sects ; and it is on account of this that they get 

 their English name of humming-birds. They 

 can hover about in this way for a considerable 

 time ; and this rapid motion of the wings, when 

 hovering, appears to give them an impetus for 

 flight, in like manner as a similar though slower 

 motion gives an impetus to eagles and other 

 birds of prey, which stoop with great rapidity 

 through the air. In consequence of the im- 

 petus thus given, the hummivg-birds can in an 

 instant dart from one place to another, up- 

 wards, downwards, or laterally, without any 

 apparent eifort. When they take longer flights, 

 they do not fly on a level with steady wing, but 

 describe a series of flat arches, each arch ap- 

 pearing as if it were a separate leap in the air.* 



Pigeons are pronounced by na- 

 turalists to constitute one of the 

 most numerous, the most widely 

 distributed, and in some respects 

 the most interesting families of 

 the feathered creation. With 

 the exception of the Polar zones, 

 they are found not only on every 

 broad land, in all torrid and tem- 

 perate latitudes, but in the re- 

 motest islands. A great interest 

 attaches to these birds from the 

 fact that one of the species has 



16 



427. 



been rendered eminently useful 

 to man. Before the days when 

 electric telegraphy outrivalled the 

 speed of the bird, the carrier 

 pigeon, 16^ was of considerable 

 importance for the speedy trans- 

 mission of messages. 



* Partington's British Cyclopaedia 



