Another Humming-bird—the Sappho Comet—is about the same size as the last one, and he is a lovely gleaming green, too—an emerald green, I think—on his head and neck and shoulders, but his throat is light blue—the colour of a most beautiful turquoise. But such a turquoise! There is no other one in the world that ever gleamed and flashed and sparkled in that way, because, you know, turquoises do not sparkle at all—at least nowhere else—it is not their habit. But I think that some of the very finest of them—at least the lovely colours that were in them—must have flown into that Humming-bird's throat and begun to gleam and flash and sparkle there. Perhaps they begged to be allowed to as a very special favour. Then the tail of this Humming-bird is forked too, like the other one's, but not in quite the same way. It is more like the fork of an arrow than two little rainbows turned back to back, and instead of being violet it is all ruby and copper and topaz, with a broad band of velvet black at each tip. I cannot tell you how brilliant those colours are—the ruby and the copper and the topaz. They are so brilliant that, if you were to take them into a dark room, I really almost think they would light it up like a lamp or a candle. Oh, it is a wonderful tail. You might think and think for quite a long time and yet you would never be able to think how bright—how wonderfully bright—it is.
But listen to what the Indians say. They say that once that Humming-bird was out in a thunderstorm, and the lightning got angry with him because he flew so fast, and tried to strike him. It was jealous of him, that was the reason, for the lightning likes to think itself faster than anything else. But although the lightning chased that Humming-bird for a very long time, it could only just touch his tail, and there it has stayed—a little flash of it which was not enough to hurt—ever since. You know how bright the lightning is; that will help you to think what that Humming-bird's tail is like. And you know, now, what his throat is like. Fancy seeing them both together, flashing, sparkling, gleaming, beaming, glancing, dancing in the glorious, glowing sunshine of South America.
But now in the Splendid-breasted Humming-bird all the glory is upon his breast, his throat. Once, I think (at least the Indians say so), he must have flown very high—yes, right up to heaven, and the door was open and he tried to fly in. But he could not, they turned him away; but the glory of heaven had just fallen upon his breast and he flew back with it there, to earth. It is green—that glory—the most marvellous, light, gleaming green, but all at once, as you look at it, it has changed to blue, an exquisite light, turquoise blue, and then, just as you are going to cry out, “Oh, but it is blue, not green,” it is green again, and then blue again before you can say that it is green, and then, all at once, it is both at the same time, for each has changed into the other.
It is the throat-gorget (you know I explained to you) on which this glorious colour falls, but this bird has such a large one that it covers the breast as well as the throat, and goes up quite high on each side, till it meets the deep, rich, velvety black of the head. Of course this deep, velvet black makes the wonderful green and blue look all the more wonderful, for it is a dark background for them to shine out against, and your mother will explain to you what a background is. Then, on the back this Humming-bird is green too—in fact you might call him the emerald Humming-bird—but it is darker than that other green (if anything so bright can be darker) and without the lovely turquoise-blue in it. It is a glory, but not such a glory as the one on his breast; not the glory of heaven that fell upon him at its gates—perhaps it is his memory of it as he flew away.
But now I feel sure you will ask why the same brightness which streamed out of heaven, and spoilt the plumage of the Birds of Paradise, should have made the plumage of this Humming-bird so beautiful. Well, it is a difficult question, but perhaps it is because the Humming-bird was thinking of heaven, and wishing to get into it, whilst the Birds of Paradise had got tired of being in heaven and were only thinking of earth. That might have made a very great difference. And perhaps you will say, “If the Humming-birds are sunbeams that have been changed into birds, why should some of them have been made more beautiful afterwards in other ways?” Well, as to that, there are a great many different kinds of Humming-birds (more than four hundred, as I told you), so perhaps they were not quite all of them sunbeams first, and besides, even when a bird has been a sunbeam first, something else might happen to it when it had become a bird. At any rate, if one explanation does not seem satisfactory, there is always the other, and one of them must be the right one—until you are a clever person, which will not be yet awhile. So now we will go on, for there are some other Humming-birds with other explanations waiting.
The Glow-glow Humming-bird (I do like that name) is smaller than any of the other three we have talked about, for it is less than half the size of a little wren. Its head and its back are shining green (you will be thinking all the Humming-birds are green, but wait a little!), its breast is white, but its throat—oh, its throat!—what is it? What can it be called? It is a rose that has burst into flame. No, it is a flame trying to look like a rose. No, it is neither of these. It is one of those stars that are of all colours, and change from one to the other as you look at them—from green to gold, from gold to topaz, from topaz to rosy red. Only this star changed into every colour at once, which was wonderful, and as he did that (and this was still more wonderful) he flew all to pieces, and little bits of him were scattered through the whole air, and when the sun rose and shone upon them, they were all Humming-birds, flying about with wings and feathers, and with long Latin names, so that there should be no doubt about it. It was wonderful, wonderful; but yet it was not quite so wonderful as the colours upon this Humming-bird's throat.
The Little Flame-bearer (there is a name for you!) is a still smaller Humming-bird than the last one—indeed his body, without the feathers, would not be very much larger than a very large humble-bee. Here, again, all the wonder is on its throat, which is topaz and green and copper, all glowing and sparkling together, as if they were all married to one another and each of them was trying to get the upper hand. Ah, was there ever such a sweet little gem-bird? He is a jewel mounted on wings and set in the air. Only sometimes, when he hovers just underneath a flower, he seems hanging from its tip like a pendant.
Costa's Coquette (that means that some one named Costa—some Portuguese gentleman—was the first to write about it) is larger than the Little Flame-bearer (though not half so big as a wren), and he tries to be brighter. Whether he is brighter I am sure I can't say. To tell properly, one ought to see them both hovering under the same flower, or, at least, very close together, and even then one would only feel bewildered. But this one's head and throat are all one splendour, one marvellous gleam of rosy, pinky, rosy-pink, pinky-rose magenta. Only if you say that that is what it is, it will change into violet and contradict you, and then, if you say it is violet, it will change into topaz and contradict you again. So you had better say nothing—for one does not want to be contradicted—but just hold your breath and watch it. It will change quite soon enough, even then, long before you are tired of its rosy, pinky, rosy-pink, pinky-rose magenta, which is a colour you have not seen, and which I have not told you about before. Only if you must say something about it whilst you are looking at it—something besides “Oh!” I mean—say it is a Humming-bird. That will be quite sufficient, and not one of its colours can be offended with you then for not mentioning them and mentioning the others. Now, I must tell you that the feathers of this little bird's throat—of that wonderful, gleaming throat-gorget—grow out on each side into two little peaks, two little pointed tongues of rose-pink magenta flame (but hush!), and he can spread them out and shoot them forward, as well as the whole of the gorget, in quite a wonderful way. When he does that, what he seems to do is to strike a great number of matches at the same time, and from each one, as he strikes it, there bursts out hundreds and hundreds of bright, sparkling jewels of flame. Ah, you should see him strike his jewel-matches—all together, all the jewels that there are, all struck in one second, as he whizzes about in the air. His back is all green, and so bright, if only you cover up his head and throat. If you don't cover them—or as soon as you uncover them again—you hardly seem to see it. It is no brighter then than a glow-worm is when a very bright star is shooting through the air.
Now we come to the Splendid Coquette, a little bird not half the size of a golden-crested wren, which is the smallest bird that we, in this country, know anything about, smaller, even, than the common wren. He has a crest, too—this little Humming-bird—a very fine one of chestnut feathers, not sticking up on the top of the head, as so many crests do, but going backwards after the head has come to an end, so that it makes a little chestnut feather-awning for the neck to be under. But just where they spring from the head each of these chestnut feathers is black, and at their tips, too, they have all a little black spot, and this makes them look still prettier than if they were all chestnut. When the little bird spreads out this fine crest of his, like a fan—for he can do that—all the feathers in it stand out separately from each other, and then he looks like a little sun in the centre of his own rays.
Yes, a sun, because he is so very bright. He has a gorget (or perhaps you would prefer to call it a lappet) of feathers on his throat and breast, of the most glorious, radiant green colour, and from it there shoot out—one on each side—a pair of the very loveliest and most delicate little fairy-wings that ever you never saw—for I feel sure that you never have seen anything at all like them. I do not mean, of course, that they are real wings, to fly with, no—it would be funny if a bird had two pairs of that kind—but ornamental ones, wings for the little hen Humming-bird, who has none, to look at and say, “How beautiful! How extraordinarily becoming!” Each of these dear little wings is made by a few delicate, long, slender feathers of a light chestnut colour, the same as the feathers of the crest, only, instead of being tipped with black, these ones are tipped with a spot of the same lovely green that there is on the throat and breast. The longest of them, which is in the middle, is nearly an inch long—which is very long indeed when you think how small the little birdie is—and it stands out a quarter of an inch beyond the two next longest ones on each side of it, and these are almost a quarter of an inch longer than the ones that come next. If you hold out your hand with the fingers spread out, and imagine the middle one a good deal longer and the little finger and thumb much shorter, then you will know the shape of these dear little fairy-wings; only, of course, feathers are much more elegant than fingers—even than pretty little fingers. Think how pretty something in muslin or puff-lace, like that, on a dress would be!—but it is ever, oh, ever so much prettier on a little Humming-bird, in little chestnut feathers with little green spangles at their tips. And that is why I call them “fairy-wings,” for I think if any pair of wings that are not a fairy's could be pretty enough for a fairy, those would be the ones.