:;::::;:3v ALONG THE STREAM OF DEATH m::::::::: 



at the side. The yellow-hodied Httle workers were but 

 half an inch in lenoth and their home eight inches 

 in diameter, but when a lizard unwittingly crept with 

 short jerky advances upon their cactus-pad, jarring 

 their nest, the tumult was such that we fled for our 

 lives. 



Here, at the edge of the open, the Western Mocking- 

 birds loved to perch and whisper their songs. None 

 were as yet full-voiced, but all were practising, and as 

 one passed a low thorn-bush, there came to the ear 

 a harmony, — low and blended as if from a great dis- 

 tance, — and there, within a dozen feet, was the gray 

 and white mastersinger. 



As we entered the more luxuriant growth along the 

 stream-bed, the character of the birds, insects, and 

 plants was wholly changed. The dull-coloured inhabit- 

 ants of the sandy country were left behind, and here 

 bright tints and green hues prevailed. A blossoming 

 tree, which we found very abundant throughout the 

 tierra caliente, was the ^jrimarera of the Mexicans, so 

 called from its early spring blossoms ( CochJospernivm 

 hibiscoides). Although yet leafless, its branches sent 

 forth a myriad bell-shaped blossoms of brightest yel- 

 low, growing in such profusion as sometimes to form 

 one solid mass of colour. Amid these we found a very 

 diminutive hummingbird, nameless to us, green and 

 white, with a lavender throat and a black streak 

 through the eye. 



<^ 237 #* 



