Humming-birds often fly into open rooms, impelled apparently by a
fearless curiosity, and may then be chased about until they drop
exhausted or are beaten down and caught, and, as Gould says, "if then
taken into the hand, they almost immediately feed on any sweet, or pump
up any liquid that may be offered to them, without betraying either fear
or resentment at the previous treatment." Wasps and bees taken in the
same way endeavour to sting their captor, as most people know from
experience, nor do they cease struggling violently to free themselves;
but the dragon-fly is like the humming-bird, and is no sooner caught
after much ill-treatment, than it will greedily devour as many flies and
mosquitoes as one likes to offer it. Only in beings very low in the
scale of nature do we see the instinct of self-preservation in this
extremely simple condition, unmixed with reason or feeling, and so
transient in its effects. The same insensibility to danger is seen when
humming-birds are captured and confined in a room, and when, before a
day is over, they will flutter about their captor's face and even take
nectar from his lips.

Some observers have thought that hummingbirds come nearest to
humble-bees in their actions. I do not think so. Mr. Bates writes: "They
do not proceed in that methodical manner which bees follow, taking the
flowers seriatim, but skip about from one part of a tree to another in
the most capricious manner." I have observed humble-bees a great deal,
and feel convinced that they arc among the most highly intelligent of
the social hymenoptera. Humming-birds, to my mind, have a much closer
resemblance to the solitary wood-boring bees and to dragon-flies. It
must also be borne in mind that insects have very little time in which
to acquire experience, and that a large portion of their life, in the
imago state, is taken up with the complex business of reproduction.