a Baht LE OF COLOURS 147 
jewelry, and a little farther down they gleam into 
ruddy bronze and coppery topaz, and then—oh, what 
is that? ‘The very sun himself has flashed out from 
his throat, from his gorget—yes, a little flake of the 
sun, a sunflake instead of a snowflake. Oh, it is 
such a gorget, a gorget of golden topaz, of coppery 
gold, of green gold, of silver gold, of silver, of 
gleaming white, of all these together, and it spreads 
out on each side like a wonderful fan, and shoots out in 
front of all the other feathers. Such a gorget! The 
feathers in it are not feathers at all—I do not think 
they can be feathers—they are sunflakes, as I have 
told you. 
That is what this Humming-bird is like on the 
throat. Underneath the throat, on the breast, he 
becomes green again, not the dark velvet green of 
the back, but a still more glorious green, gleaming 
and brilliant, but soft and rich at the same time. It 
is a green that changes, too—changes almost into blue. 
I will tell you how that is. Once this green—this 
wonderful, lovely green—did not think itself lovely 
enough (which was funny), so it said to the blue of the 
violet and the turquoise and the amethyst and the 
sapphire: “‘Come and make part of me, but I must 
be the greater part.” ‘That is not fair,” cried the 
blues of all those lovely things ; “‘ we will come, since 
you have invited us, but we intend to have the upper 
