"
"My dear child, he might be doing so; I don't know. Perhaps the good God
has given to these creatures the same senses for enjoying sweet scents and
bright colours as we have; yet it was not for the perfume, but the honey,
that this little bird came to visit the open flowers. The long slender
bill, which the humming-bird inserts into the tubes of the flowers, is his
instrument for extracting the honey. Look at the pretty creature's ruby
throat, and green and gold feathers."
"How does it make that whirring noise, nurse, just like the humming of a
top?" asked the child.
"The little bird produces the sound, from which he derives his name, by
beating the air with his wings. This rapid motion is necessary to sustain
his position in the air while sucking the flowers.
"I remember, Lady Mary, first seeing humming-birds when I was about your
age, while walking in the garden. It was a bright September morning, and
the rail-fences and every dry twig of the brushwood were filled with the
webs of the field-spider. Some, like thick white muslin, lay upon the
grass; while others were suspended from trees like forest lace-work, on
the threads of which the dewdrops hung like strings of shining pearls; and
hovering round the flowers were several ruby-throated humming-birds, the
whirring of whose wings as they beat the air sounded like the humming of a
spinning-wheel.
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