WHAT £HE INDIANS: SAY rot 
It is because they are so bright and gleaming, and 
hover in the air as a sunbeam dances in it, or shoot 
through it as quickly and as brightly as a sunbeam 
shoots down from the sun. Well, yes, that is one 
explanation; but why should there not be two (as 
there were about the Birds of Paradise), so that you 
can choose the one you like best ?>—for you know 
you are not a clever person yet. Well, there are 
two, for the Indians say that the Humming-birds 
are called living sunbeams because they really are 
living sunbeams, just as you are called a little 
girl because you are a little girl; and how could 
there be a simpler explanation of a thing than 
that ? 
And this is how it happened, only you must 
remember that it was a very, very long time ago. 
In those old days the sun had not long sent his 
beams to earth, and it was only after they came 
there that the things upon the earth began to live. 
There had been no life at all before, it had all 
been dark and cold; it was only when the sun’s 
beams began to shine upon the cold, dark earth, 
that they warmed it into life and love. Now as 
first one beautiful thing and then another began 
to live upon the earth, the sunbeams admired them 
all very much, but they did not envy them, for 
there was nothing there quite so beautiful as a 
