PLOVER CREST HUMMING-BIRD
But the foolish sunbeams, who could not understand what death should be, persisted, and the sun, who loved them because they were his children, had to do what they asked. So one night, when all the other sunbeams had flown back to him, he sent these foolish ones to sleep on the earth (which had never happened to them before), and there they lay all night—some in the flower-cups, some under the leaves of the trees—without giving any light at all, for when a sunbeam is asleep it can give no light. But in the morning, when their brother and sister sunbeams flew back to earth, they woke up, but the two did not know each other again, for the foolish sunbeams were not sunbeams any more—not real ones, that is to say. They flew about, still, in the forests, and glanced through the trees, and hovered over the flowers, in almost the same way as they had done before; but now they had a shape and wings, and they sipped the nectar out of the flower-cups, which was a thing that they had never even dreamed about. They were Humming-birds, and though their feathers were as bright as they had ever been, and though they had all of them long Latin names and a scientific description in books, still it was not quite the same, for it would take a lot of Latin and a lot of scientific description, to make up for not being a sunbeam. But when the Indians came to know of the occurrence, they called them “living sunbeams,” and it is easy to understand what they meant. And now you know (until you are a clever person) how Humming-birds came into the world. But you must not think that the other sunbeams—the real ones that have never changed into anything—are dead. Oh no, indeed! How could they dance and play about as they do, if they were?
CHAPTER VIII
Some very Bright Humming-Birds
One of the most beautiful of all the Humming-birds (but we can say that of so many) is the Rainbow Humming-bird. It is very large for a Humming-bird, so what will you think when I say that its body is about the size of a little wren's, a bird which, perhaps, you had been thinking was the smallest bird there is. Why, a Humming-bird that is as big, or almost as big, as a wren is a very big Humming-bird indeed—in fact quite a gigantic one. But now, the tail of this Humming-bird is very different to a wren's, and makes it look still bigger because it is so long—three to three and a half inches, I should think—and such a wonderful shape. It is forked, so you must think of a swallow first if you want to imagine it; but then you must imagine that the two feathers which make the fork of a swallow's tail are curved outwards like two little scimitars, so that their tips are six inches apart from each other. Indeed they gleam as brightly as any scimitar does in the sun, but it is not like steel that they gleam, for they are of the most lovely deep, rich, violet-blue that you can imagine, such a colour as was never seen anywhere else out of the rainbow; and now I come to think of it, what these lovely feathers are most like is two little violet rainbows set back to back. You can think how lovely they look as they go darting through the air, and I must tell you that the beautiful violet-blue sends out gleams of other kinds of blues—lighter ones—which are just as beautiful as the violet itself. On the opposite page you see the picture of a Humming-bird that is a good deal like this one. But it is not the same, so the tail is not quite the same either.
Now of course you will think—and you will be quite right to think so—that a bird that has a tail like two little violet rainbows will have the other parts of him beautiful as well. Well, the back of this bird is all green—a beautiful, shining, gleaming green, and his head is green too—at least it seems to be when you see it first; but, as you look at it, all at once the green changes into a heavenly violet blue, to match the heavenly violet blue of its lovely rainbow tail. Under the throat it is green like the rest, but just in the centre of it there is a tiny little drop—just one or two little feathers—of the very loveliest amethyst. Ah, fancy seeing a bird like that flying about and hovering over the flowers. Only you would not see him, for you would not be able to see his wings—at least not properly—they would move so fast. What you would see, would be a little circle of hazy brown mist, and, right in the middle of it, a little sparkling sun, and on the other side, gleaming through the mist, two sweet little violet rainbows. Then all at once there would be a trail of light in the air, and it would all be somewhere else—another sun and rainbows over another flower. Of course, really, a Humming-bird would have flown from one flower to another, but what it would look like would be a gleam of light—a sunbeam—with a jewel-flash at each end of it.
TRAIN-BEARER HUMMING-BIRD