"Suddenly a glittering object shot up into the air until it was almost lost to sight; then descended upon the nest I was just examining. No wonder the eggs resembled pearls, when the parent bird could not have been more than two inches in length. When I beheld the lovely, fragile thing, with its diamond-bright eyes, and the plumage of the graceful curved throat, glittering like burnished metal in changing hues of orange and ruby, I felt ready to cry with vexation that I was such an ugly, worm-like creature. True, I shall be handsomer sometime; but I can never be a humming-bird. Besides, I belong to a sober species. A robin came hopping along jauntily from twig to twig, with a morsel of cherry in his beak.
"'Such a fright as I have had,' twittered the humming-bird. 'A great stupid man was peering about to find my nest a long while, and to-day he has followed me. Ah! but I gave him a long journey. I fluttered right and left, or darted ahead; then finally rose in the air so high he could hardly see my wee body; then dashed down here safe enough.'
"'A wise plan,' commented the robin. 'Thank fortune, I am not in such demand.'
"Interested in the conversation, I crept too near the margin of the leaf, lost my balance, and fell upon the nest.
"'You awkward thing,' said the bird, giving me a contemptuous poke aside. 'How ugly you are!'
"'I know it,' I replied; 'it was my admiration of your superior beauty that caused my fall. Excuse the clumsiness of a caterpillar just born.'
"'Go away with your nonsense and flattery I feared I was shot when you fell.'
"'Who would hurt you?' I asked, slowly climbing back to my leaf.
"'Plenty of enemies. That man is watching below, and nothing would delight his cruel soul so much as to carry away my family.'
"'Tell me something amusing, or I will inform him where you live.'