In my hand I held the most remarkable of all living things, a creature of astounding abilities that elude our understanding, of extraordinary, even bizarre senses, of stamina and endurance far surpassing anything else in the animal world. Yet my captive measured a mere five inches in length and weighed less than half an ounce, about the weight of a fifty-cent piece. I held that truly awesome enigma, a bird. (Fisher, 1979) page xxi