::::::::»x TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO B:"""" 



of white eggs. A little later he had apjDeared as an 

 ugly, naked, short-billed hummerling, sharing the cup 

 of plant-down with his sister, and peering over the 

 rim of the lichen-covered cradle. 



We saw him only in his death — the only time we 

 have ever seen a hinnmingbird which had died from 

 accident. The little fellow, not yet in his adult plum- 

 age, had apparently attempted to snatch an insect from 

 a bunch of burr-blossoms. Vibrating a little too near, 

 one wing had become caught, and instantly the tiny 

 body had been precipitated upon the mass of prickles, 

 every struggle holding it but the tighter. 



At the southern jungle-edge of the tangle was a great 

 fig-tree, all but throttled with a vine, which twined 

 and knotted its mighty folds about the trunk and 

 branches, until it was hard to say to which belonged 

 the leaves, to which the fruit. Large currant-like ber- 

 ries, Avith a black stone in each one, hung from the 

 tendrils of the vine. The lessening vitality of the an- 

 cient tree had attracted devastating insects, and its 

 vine-shadowed and stranoled twios were wreathed in 

 thousands of webs and caterpillar nests — a perfect 

 feast for all birds, insectivorous and frugivorous. 



In this land overflowing with life, we found now 

 and then evidences of tragedies, which had been 

 enacted in the deep silence of the woods — piles of 

 feathers, scattered bones, which told of pursuit and 

 flight, battle, surrender, and death. But we were less 



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