蜂鸟（6）

所有的蜂鸟物种之间，一成是濒危或者极度濒危的。它们值得保护；我们很长的时间一直爱它们。美国西南部的有一些最古老的居民，纳瓦霍人和莫哈韦人，都有人民赞赏蜂鸟的传说。莫哈韦人的神话说在人生的开始，所有人类都住在黑暗的地下，直到放在他们上面隧道被释放的蜂鸟导航那些又狭小又弯扭的地道，领导人类上去白天的光明。蜂鸟是向导鸟，对光亮有关系。纳瓦霍人有把蜂鸟看作探索者：它大胆的飞舞、它忽飞上忽跌下去的时刻（我们现在认为这是一种交配行为，让雄性蜂鸟给对象显示它所有的紫外颜色）代表蜂鸟试图偷看天空蓝色的上面。蜂鸟从没成功超过蓝色的境界，但是这从来没让它们停尝试。

Around one in ten of all hummingbird species are now endangered or critically endangered. They are worth protecting; we have loved them for a long time. Some of the earliest inhabitants of the American south-west, the Navajo and Mojave peoples, have old stories that salute the hummingbird. The Mojave myth says that at the beginning of human life all people lived in darkness underground. They dwelled in the earth until a hummingbird, released into the tunnels above them, navigated the narrow twisting passages and led them up into the bright of the day. They are guiding birds and have an affinity with light. The Navajo also regard the hummingbird as an explorer: its wild swoops, and those moments in which it soars up only to plummet downwards – which we now believe to be a mating ritual, allowing the male to display all his ultraviolet colours to his mate – are attempts to peer above the blue of the sky. The hummingbird has never succeeded in reaching past the blue, but that has never stopped them trying.