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Of "that Bird's two eggs," Mr. Chapman says: "As far as known, all hummingbirds lay two white eggs — frail, pearly ellipses — that after ten days incubation develop into a tangle of dark limbs and bodies, which no one could think of calling birds, much less winged gems."
It has been a matter of doubt to many whether hummingbirds ever rested at all or spent their lives in the air exclusively, but Mr. Gould states authoritatively: "Although many short intermissions of rest are taken during the day, the bird may be said to live in the air — an element in which it performs every kind of evolution with the utmost ease, frequently rising perpendicularly, flying backwards, pirouetting or dancing off, as it were."
It was the belief of the Duke of Argyle that no bird could fly backward, a theory that he stated with emphasis in his Reign of Law, but it has been proved that he reckoned without "the winglet of the fairy hummingbird," which seems to be the exception to prove a reigning law of Nature.
Montgomery makes of the whole Trochilidae family this inspired explanation:
"Art thou a bird, a bee, or butterfly?
Each and all three; — a bird
A bee collecting sweets from
bloom to bloom,
A butterfly in brilliancy of plume. " |
The blooms from which he collects his sweets are of the tubular flowers almost exclusively, as a mark, possibly, of his appreciation of their invention for him and at his request, as told by Albert Bigelow Paine:
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"The clover said the humming-bird,
Was fashioned for the bee,
But ne'er a flower, as I have heard,
Was ever made for me.
A passing zephyr paused, and stirred
Some moonlit drops of dew
To earth; and for the humming-bird
The honeysuckle grew." |
Of his manner of hanging before his tubular flowers Goodrich says: "He poises or suspends himself on wing for the space of two or three seconds so steadily that his wings become invisible and you can plainly discern the pupil of his eye, looking round with great quickness and circumspection. The glossy green of his back and the fire of his throat, dazzling in the sun, form altogether a most interesting appearance."
This appearance Alexander Wilson pictures thus:
"While richest roses though in crimson drest,
Spring from the splendors of his gorgeous breast.
What heavenly tints in mingling radiance fly!
Each rapid movement gives a different dye;
Like scales of burnished gold they dazzling show,
Now sink to shade, now like a furnace glow!" |
It is little wonder that Buffon exclaimed, "Nature has loaded it with all the gifts of which she has only given other birds a share!" Yet Mr. Ridgway considers the Count de Buffon's laudation as excessive because the "absence of melodious voice is, as a rule, a conspicuous deficiency of the tribe"; and in 1693 Mr. Hammersley of Coventry stated, "God, in many of his creatures, is bountiful, but not lavish, for I did observe the hummingbirds for several years, and never heard them sing."
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