6 
Osprey ; or , 
greys, touched with iridescence on the neck—but its 
lines were so perfect—it was so beautifully pro¬ 
portioned ! Colour is very much more to the child’s 
aesthetic sense than form or sculpture. At that early 
period my own belief was that the humming-bird 
exceeded all creatures in loveliness. Not dead in the 
hand, when it has only a scientific value and interest; 
nor a dead humming-bird worn in a lady’s hat, which 
to my mind is a thing hateful to look at, as I fancy that 
it should be to every person who has a proper sense 
of the fitness of things. For it is the art of savages, 
who are without art, to decorate themselves with teeth 
and shells and feathers. But a humming-bird living, 
balanced motionless in mid-air, or dancing its mar¬ 
vellous aerial dance in the brilliant sunshine. It is 
indescribable and unimaginable : an airy fairy bird- 
form, suspended not on wings, which are changed by 
swift vibratory motion to a semicircle of mist, and 
exhibiting as it pauses and turns itself this way and 
that, colours as changeable and more splendid than 
those on a soap-bubble ; and in a moment, even while 
you look, lo, it has vanished, as if it had been a fairy 
indeed, or a mere brilliant phantom of the mind, so 
swift is its passage through the air! 
I wonder if any lady who had once seen thisvivid little 
creature alive and sparkling among the flowers could 
wear it as an ornament—dead and dusty and crushed 
out of shape, all its glory gone ! I wonder if its small 
red heart—round and ruby-red, like a small ruby worn 
