TOO BRIGHT TO BE LOOKED AT 15s 
and then, when he spreads out his tail like a fan— 
which you may be sure he knows how to do—there 
are two white patches upon it as well, which look 
like two smaller snowflakes. It is not many Hum- 
ming-birds who are ornamented in shat way. How 
did this one get those white patches, and are they 
really snowflakes that fell upon him? You shall 
hear. Once they were not white at all, those patches, 
but coloured with all the colours of the rainbow, 
and more brilliant than anything you could possibly 
think of, more brilliant even than any other colour 
that is upon any other Humming-bird. Indeed they 
were so brilliant that no one could look at them, and 
that made the Humming-bird very proud indeed. 
“Could my rivals have looked at me,” he said, ‘‘ they 
would never have confessed my superiority, however 
plainly they must have seen it. Not to be able to 
look at me is, in itself, a confession. They are 
dazzled, and well they may be, for to look at me is 
like looking at the sun himself. Surely there is no 
earthly brightness that I do not outshine.” And as 
the proud bird said this, he looked up, and there, far 
above him in the blue dome of the sky, were the 
snows of the mighty mountain Chimborazo, and 
in their white, dazzling purity they seemed even 
brighter than himself. But instead of being humbled, 
the Humming-bird only felt insulted, and resolved 
