Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/80

62 Into the flower he would dart, stay a longer or shorter time, as he found occasion, and then like a flash draw out and back away, his wings all the while beating themselves to a film of light. I wonder if any other of our common hovering birds—the kingbird, for example, or the kingfisher—can match the hummer in this regard.

A second thing that interested me was his choice of blossoms. My neighbor's canna bed is made up in about equal parts of two kinds of plants, one with red blossoms, the other with yellow. The hummer went to the red flowers only. He must have probed a hundred, I should say. As for the yellow ones, he seemed not to know they were there. Now, was not this a plain case of color preference? It looked so, surely; but I remembered that hummingbirds are persistent haunters of the yellow blossoms of the jewel-weed, and concluded that something besides a difference of color must account for what appeared to be this fellow's well-considered line of conduct. It is hard work, but as far as possible, let us abstain from hasty generalizations.