::::::::»x TWO BIRD- LOVERS IN MEXICO >*::".■:::: 



Coffee-trees are beaded with their red fruit, carnation 

 and oreranium bushes reflect brilhant masses of colour. 

 To walk to parlour or dining-room we pass strawberries, 

 great heliotropes, and climbing ferns, and all through 

 the moonlight nights, the odour of unpicked violets 

 and gardeuias passes like incense throughout the whole 

 house. 



What city veranda or back yard can compensate for 

 the deliiiht of bein<»- able to recline on one's couch and 

 watch the wonderful hummingl)irds, attracted by the 

 flowers, shoot down into one's very house, or again in 

 the dusk when those ghosts of hummingbirds — great 

 grav si)hinx moths visit the /tatio. uncoiling their 

 long tongues and drawing up the sweet nectar from 

 the calyxes ! 



But to return to the fields which stretched beyond 

 the makers of bricks. It is not diflicult to describe 

 a Guadalajara winter landscai)e where the last drop of 

 nu)isture fell in October, and the sun shines unclouded 

 by storm until the following June. Here and there, 

 far apart, we saw large mesquite-trees, but besides these 

 the eve rested only on maize-fields, with the brown 

 stalks of the last crop still standing. These fields are 

 divided off, not by fences of stone or wire, but by 

 ditches eight to ten feet in depth and as many wide, 

 while along each side runs a fringe of tall cactus, mak- 

 ing trespassing often a diflicult and painful process. 

 These inverted fences are to drain off the excess water 



<4 40 ^ 



