126 
THE HUMMING-BIRD. 
of the humming-bird, and I have read Mr. Ovid's 
account of the growth of Captain Cadmus's masons, 
and both very attentively. I think the veracity of 
the one is as apparent as the veracity of the other. 
What, in the name of skin and feathers, I ask, has 
Mr. Audubon found in the economy of the ruby- 
throated humming-bird to enable him to inform 
Englishmen that its young can fly in so short a space 
of time ? The young of no other bird that we are 
acquainted with, from the condor to the wren, can 
fly when only a week old. 
The humming-bird, in every part of its body and 
plumage, is quite as perfect as the eagle itself ; 
neither is it known to difler in the duration of its 
life from any of the smaller birds of the forest 
which it inhabits. Like them it bursts the shell 
in a state of nudity ; like them, it is blind for some 
days ; and, like them, it has to undergo the gradual 
process of fledging, which is so slow in its operation, 
that I aflfirm, without fear of refutation, it cannot 
possibly produce, in the space of one short week, a 
series of feathers capable of supporting the bird 
through the air. 
Again, the precocious flying of the young birds 
argues precocity of feathers ; and this would authorise 
us to look for precocity of lustre in the male. But 
Mr. Audubon informs us that the male does not re- 
ceive its full brilliancy of colour until the succeeding 
spring ; and I myself can affirm, from actual observ- 
ation, that the additional plumage which adorns 
some humming-birds does not make its appearance 
till towards the middle of the second year. 
