MY HUMMING BIBDS. 



57 



scanning the Bucolics. For a long time my gentle playmates of 

 the sun and flowers gave way to black-letter folios and smoky lamp- 

 light. I thought I had almost forgotten those once beloved children 

 of the free life; but no sooner had I returned among them with 

 some . leisure on my hands, than my old love returned — my old 

 passion broke forth once more with a deeper and widening enthu- 

 siasm. Every living thing came to me now with lives that bore 

 a higher meaning, gleams of which were beginning to visit me. 



It was no longer as an idle boy, or a sportsman merely, that I 

 went forth into nature — it was as a naturalist in earnest {'or facfs! 

 The Principia had cured me of romance, and I was wild for 

 demonstration. 



An accident about this time attracted my attention to Humming 

 Birds in particular again. Entering the library one morning, I 

 saw, to my delight, a Humming Bird fluttering against the upper 

 part of a window, the lower sash of which was raised. I advanced 

 softly, but rapidly as possible, and let down the sash. I had 

 been taught the necessity of such caution long ago, by a bitter 

 experience, for out of more than a dozen 1 had attempted to 

 catch in this very room — to which they were enticed by the 

 vases of flowers within — I had not succeeded in keeping one alive 

 beyond a moment or two after I had seized it; for, if startled 

 too suddenly, ere there had been time enough for to realise the 

 deception of the glass, they invariably flew against it with such 

 violence as to kill themselves; thus my childish eagerness had 

 always robbed me of what I most coveted, although it seemed 

 already mine. 



This time, however, I succeeded in securing an uninjured cap- 

 tive, which, to my inexpressible delight, proved to be one of the 

 Huby-throated species — the most splendid and diminutive that 

 comes north of Florida. It immediately suggested itself to me 

 that a mixture of two parts refined loaf sugar, with one of fine 

 honey, in ten of water, would make about the nearest approach 

 to the nectar of flowers. While my sister ran to prepare it, I 

 gradually opened my hand to look at my prisoner, and saw to 

 my no little amusement as well as surprise, that it was actually 

 "playing possom," — feining to be dead most skilfully! It lay 

 on my open palm motionless for some minutes, during which I 

 watched it in breathless curiosity. I saw it gradually open its 

 bright little eyes to peep whether the way was clear, and then 

 close them slowly as it caught my eye upon it; but when the 

 manufactured nectar came, and a drop was touched gently to the 

 point of its bill, it came to life very suddenly, and in a moment 

 was on its legs, drinking with eager gusto of the refreshing 

 draught from a silver tea-spoon. When sated, it refused to take 



