:::::::::C TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO B-"""" 



might be seen carrying- on their courtship with enthu- 

 siasm, heedless of the blinding heat. Half-hidden on 

 a spray of thorn-bush perched a shy coloradita, her 

 dull striped breast and darker back merging softly into 

 the gray environment. But ardent admirers had found 

 her out, and one after the other tried their utmost 

 to outdo each other in the little performance which 

 Mother Nature had taught them. All thought of pur- 

 suing the gnats and gray-winged flies which swarmed 

 about the cactus blossoms was gone, and, quivering with 

 eagerness, the brilliant little fellows put their whole 

 heart into their aerial dance. 



Up shoots one from a mesquite tree, with full, rounded 

 crest, and breast puffed out until it seems a floating 

 ball of vermilion — buoyed up on vibrating wings. 

 Slowly, by successive upward throbs, the bird ascends, 

 at each point of vibrating rest uttering his little love 

 song, — a cheerful clilnfj-tlnk-a-Ie-tlnk ! ching-thik-a- 

 le-tuik ! which is the utmost he can do. When at the 

 limit of his flight, fifty or seventy-five feet above our 

 heads, he redoubles his efforts, and the ching and the 

 tinks rapidly succeed each other. Suddenly, his little 

 strength exhausted, the suitor drops to earth almost 

 vertically in a series of downward swoops, and alights 

 near the wee gray form for which he at present exists. 

 He watches eagerly for some sign of favour, but a rival 

 is already climbing skyward, whose feathers seem no 

 brighter than his, whose simple lay of love is no more 



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