106 FLORIDA 



until this winter. About Miami it is decidedly 

 common, though the green females show them- 

 selves ten times as often as the red, blue, and 

 yellow-green males. What a superbly dressed 

 creature the masculine nonpareil is ! And he 

 carries himself as if he knew it. " Dear me," he 

 seems always to be saying ; " this Joseph's coat 

 of mine makes me so conspicuous ! Some day 

 it will be my undoing." My readers will most 

 likely have seen the gorgeous little creature in 

 cages (I found one many years ago in the Bos- 

 ton Public Garden, I remember), though the 

 chances are that they have never seen him in 

 anything like his brightest and liveliest feather. 

 A bird, like a butterfly, was born to be looked 

 at out of doors with the sunlight on him. So far 

 I have heard no note from the nonpareil except 

 his rather soft chip. The birds frequent weedy 

 tangles in open grounds, showing special fondness 

 for patches of the white bur-marigold, and seem 

 to be well scattered over the country. 



Day after day I walk down through the ham- 

 mock (I have spoken of it before, and most 

 likely shall do so again) between Miami and 

 Cocoanut Grove. Indeed, so constant are my 

 peregrinations thither that I begin to find my 

 innocent self treated as a kind of mysterious 

 personage one of the " features " of the place, 



