44 STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 



resented in the engraving, is, perhaps, more 

 common in the United States than aaiy other. 

 The anecdotes, however, which are told of the 

 family, relate to different members of it. 



A lady, with whom I have not the pleasure 

 of an acquaintance, but who has made me her 

 debtor, by the pretty stories she has sent me, 

 to help entertain my juvenile friends, gives a 

 description of a humming bird, Avhich I must 

 introduce among these anecdotes. " I had the 

 stor}^," the lady says, "from uncle Peter, who, 

 by the way, is a veteran of seventj'-six, and as 

 fine a specimen of humanity as this world ordi- 

 narily produces. As my uncle Avas one day 

 working in his garden, a little humming bird 

 was darting from flower to flower, sipping the 

 honey, when a cat suddenly sprang from a 

 secret lurking-place, and brought the little bird 

 to the ground. He immediately rescued it from 

 her grasp, and carried it to the house, panting 

 and half dead with fright, and put it in a close 

 room. He returned after a short absence, in- 

 tending to give it liberty, but his little pris- 

 oner was missing. He searched for it in vain. 

 After two or three days, hearing a noise among 

 some papers upon a shelf in the room, he ex- 

 amined them, and, to his great surprise, found 

 his little bird, almost famished. He imme- 



