“The last and least of the four-winged mysteries is also the smallest of
our birds, lacking a quarter of being four inches long. But it does not
need size to proclaim its beauty any more than a glowing ruby or
emerald; and indeed it wears both of these gems, the one on its throat
and the other on its back. Its world is the garden where everything is
brightest, its food nectar, and such little aphis as gather in it, and
its home lashed by cobwebs to a slender branch, a fairy nest of plant,
wool, and lichens, soft as feather down, wherein lie two eggs, white and
opaque and glistening like some fresh-water pearls.
“When on the wing it either darts about like a ray of feathered light,
or else, poised before a deep-throated flower, remains apparently
motionless, though its wings vibrate with the mechanical hum of a
fly-wheel of perfect workmanship.
“In spite of the fact that Father Humming-bird takes himself to parts
unknown and leaves his mate to tend both eggs and birds, the mother is
neither put out nor discouraged, and makes a model parent, who gathers
and swallows the food for her tiny offspring and then, by a pumping
process called regurgitation, brings it up and, taking no chances of
spilling a drop, literally rams it into the little throat! This bird is
to me the greatest mystery of all. It comes and it goes, but how does it
endure the stress of weather and travel? Many a moth outspans it in
breadth of wings. If the flight of the Wild Goose is wonderful in its
courage, what of the Humming-bird? Is Puck of Pook’s Hill still alive,
and has he feathered playfellows?