I had landed about two weeks before at Truxillo, which is a port in Peru a little more than three hundred miles north of Lima. Look on your map, and find it. You will see that it is about eight degrees south of the equator. The name is Spanish, and you must pronounce it Trooheel'-yo. Does that sound strange to you? It should not; you ought to be taught to pronounce it that way in school. The Spanish x sounds like our letter h. Truxillo was founded by Pizarro nearly three hundred and fifty years ago, in 1535. But we must not stop here; we are looking for El Bucle.
It was the third day after my leaving Truxillo, when I found myself in a deep valley filled with flowers, and over the first flowering bush a humming-bird was hovering. I saw at once not only that he was very beautiful, but that he was different from any one that I had seen. It was my custom there to keep one barrel of my gun prepared especially for humming-birds, that is, loaded with what is called dust-shot, thus enabling me to kill them without tearing their skins, as large shot would do. It was but a minute, and I had my new bird in my hand. The right-hand figure of the two in this plate represents him as I saw him then, excepting that here the colors are not given, but I will describe them to you.
The top of his head and his back—his cap and mantle, so to speak—were of the most exquisite deep dark violet; his throat looked like polished gold, its long scaly feathers appearing to be gilded plates; while his sides and breast shone like emeralds, so bright was their green color. You see that his under surface was thus all emerald and gold—esmeralda y oro—only that his delicate little feet, almost too small to be seen, were so white as to fairly sparkle. At the same time his wings and tail were of a rich purplish-black. Can you imagine anything more elegant? I sat down to admire him, turning him over and over in my hand, and while I was thus engaged I heard a step, and looking up, I saw that one of the native girls from a house just below was coming toward me. I spoke to her, and after the usual salutation I asked her, "Señorita, como se llama este pajarito hermoso?"—"What do you call this beautiful little bird?"—and then she told me its name, just as I have told it to you. She also told me that the skins were sometimes set to wear as a brooch or buckle, and I did not wonder at it, so very beautiful were the colors.
These figures are of the natural size, and you can judge for yourself how small he is. Even with such a long tail as he has, his entire length is only three and a half inches, thus making him decidedly smaller than our ruby-throated humming-bird. As I went on down the valley I found them in abundance, and I found also that in that valley scarcely any other species was to be seen.
I was constantly watching for their nests, and before very long I saw one, and you have it represented here, with the two birds sitting on its edge. It was a very difficult matter to distinguish the nest, either that one or the others which I afterward saw, for they looked almost precisely like little knots on the bark. I found the first from seeing the bird sitting on it, and having learned how they look, I was able to find others. I climbed up to examine a number of them, and they were really very charmingly built. They were made of fine twigs and mosses, the inside being lined with the soft down from plants, while the outside was covered over with lichens, evidently with the intention of hiding the nest by causing it to look only like a knot or lump on the bark, and it was so neatly done as to require close search before the nest could be found.
You have seen from what I have said, even if you have not noticed it yourself, that humming-birds come about flowers of various kinds constantly, and evidently do it for some object. Perhaps you have been told that they get their food from the flowers. Do you know of what that food consists? It was formerly always said that they sucked the honey from the flowers, and that the honey constituted their food, and I have read many accounts in which the attempt was made to show how nicely their bills were fitted to draw up the honey from the bottom of the flower. We know now that this is not so. The humming-bird has nothing to do with the sweet fluid in the flowers, which by-the-way is not honey, though it is often called so; he cares nothing for it. Then why does he come to the flowers, you may ask, if he is not getting something from them. He is getting something; he is getting his food; but that food is insects, and nothing but insects. The sweet fluid of the flowers attracts great numbers of small flies of various sorts; you can scarcely look into any sort of flower without finding more or less of them, and sometimes the flower will be almost black with them. This the humming-bird knows, and he thrusts in his bill, and throwing out his slender sticky tongue, he picks up the flies one by one and swallows them, and that is the way he takes his meals; but the honey is nothing to him. The next time you see a humming-bird, watch him carefully, and remember what it is he is gathering.
[RACE-BALL: A NEW GAME.]
Race-ball is a highly interesting game, combining the best points of lacrosse and chevy. The game is played with five men on a side, each armed with a lacrosse bat. The sides congregate in their respective dens, and the captains toss for innings. Let us suppose the captain of C den wins the toss, the D den side then range themselves in a row on the line E, and the first man in on the line F, the latter having a lacrosse ball on his bat, and with this, directly the umpire cries "play," he tears off in the direction of the "Home" A, and the D side give chase, the object of the man in being to drop the ball in his "Home" while part of his foot, at least, is over the "home line"; the object of the others, to deprive him of the ball and take it to their den. If he get home, he waits till all his side get their innings, and then starts again; if not, he is out. Each man home counts one point, and the inning lasts till all are out, when the total is made up, and the other side go in, the highest score, of course, winning. When a man finds he can not get home, he may get the ball back to his den, and then wait his next inning, but without counting anything for his "failed inning." None of the in side may help the man in; one minute is given to the out side to get ready between each man, and three minutes between each inning. The usual rules as to umpires, etc., will hold good, and the man in may not run into his opponents' ground or out of bounds, or he is out, and if he unintentionally run into his own den he counts a "failed inning" as above.