THE HUMMING-BIRD. 125 
I have never read any thing in the annals of or- 
nithology that bears any similarit}^ to this aquilavul- 
turian exhibition progressing through the vault of 
heaven. Verily, " there is a freshness in it." 
When we reflect that Mr. Audubon is an Ame- 
rican ; that he has lived the best part of his life in 
America; that the tv/o birds themselves were Ame- 
rican, and that their wonderful encounter took place 
in America, we Englishmen marvel much that Mr. 
Audubon did not allow the press of his own country 
to have the honour to impart to the world so asto- 
nishing an adventure. 
THE RUMMING-BIRD. 
Mr. Audubon tells us, that in one week the young 
of the ruby-throated humming-bird are ready to fly. 
One would suppose, by this, that they must be 
hatched with a good coating of feathers to begin 
with. Old Dame Nature sometimes performs odd 
pranks. We are infornsed that our crooked-back 
Dicky the Third was born with teeth ; and Ovid 
mentions the astonishingly quick grovv^th of certain 
men. He says, in his account of the adventures of 
Captain Cadmus, who built Thebes, that the captain 
employed som.e men as masons who had just sprung 
up out of the earth. 
I have read Mr. Audubon's account of the growth 
