THE HUMMING-BIRD. 
127 
Were it necessary, I could show to naturalists 
their error, in sometimes mistaking a male humming- 
bird of the first year for a full-plamaged female. I 
am fully satisfied in my own mind that the internal 
anatomy of all humming-birds is precisely the same, 
except in size; having found it the same in every 
humming-bird which I dissected in Guiana and Brazil. 
Now, as the young of the humming-birds in these 
countries require more than a week to enable them 
to fly, and as Mr. Audubon's humming-bird differs 
not in internal anatomy from them, I see no reason 
why the young of his species should receive earlier 
powers of flying than the young of the humming- 
birds in the countries just mentioned. 
A word on the cradle. Mr, Audubon tells us, that 
the little pieces of lichen, used in forming the nest 
of the humming-bird, " are glued together with the 
saliva of the bird." Fiddle ! The saliva of all birds 
immediately mixes with water. A single shower of 
rain would undo all the saliva- glued work on the nest 
of Mr. Audubon's humming-bird. When our great 
master in ornithology (whose writings, according 
to Swainson, will be read when our favourite theories 
shall have sunk into oblivion) saw his humming- 
bird fix the lichen to the nest, pray what instrument 
did it make use of, in order to detach the lichen 
from the point of its own clammy bill and tongue ; 
to which it would be apt to adhere just as firmly as 
to the place where it was intended that it should 
permanently remain ? 
