134 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
and sparkle there. Perhaps they begged to be 
allowed to as a very special favour. Then the tail 
of this Humming-bird is forked too, like the other 
one’s, but not in quite the same way. It is more 
like the fork of an arrow than two little rainbows 
turned back to back, and instead of being violet it is 
all ruby and copper and topaz, with a broad band 
of velvet black at each tip. I cannot tell you how 
brilliant those colours are—the ruby and the copper 
and the topaz. They are so brilliant that, if you 
were to take them into a dark room, I really almost 
think they would light it up like a lamp or a candle. 
Oh, it is a wonderful tail. You might think and think 
for quite a long time and yet you would never be able 
to think how bright—how wonderfully bright—it is. 
But listen to what the Indians say. They say 
that once that Humming-bird was out in a thunder- 
storm, and the lightning got angry with him because 
he flew so fast, and tried to strike him. It was 
jealous of him, that was the reason, for the lightning 
likes to think itself faster than anything else. But 
although the lightning chased that Humming-bird for 
a very long time, it could only just touch his tail, 
and there it has stayed—a little flash of it which was 
not enough to hurt—ever since. You know how 
bright the lightning is; that will help you to think 
what that Humming-bird’s tail is like. And you 
