MY HUMMING BIRDS. 
103 
middle of the channel. This might lead to something or it 
might not, it was worth remembering at least. 
Now came the whirl of the youth's first ambitious strug- 
gles for excellence and success among his fellows. Bird- 
nesting gave way to Euclid, and idle strollings through the 
scented woods to scanning the Bucolics. For a long time 
my gentle playmates of the sun and flowers gave way to 
black-letter folios and smoky lamplight. I thought I had 
almost forgotten these 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 
enthusiasm. 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 earn- 
est for fads/ 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 flutter- 
ing against the upper part of a window, the lower sash of 
which was raised. I advanced softly, but rapidly as possi- 
ble, 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 I 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 sud- 
denly, ere there had been time enough for them to realize 
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, al- 
though it seemed already mine. 
This time, however, I succeeded in securing an uninjured 
