238 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



fallen upon the crown at the necessary angle. 

 The detail must nevertheless be verified. Here, 

 then, was my business for to-morrow. 



I was late in arriving, a full hour, at least, 

 behind my appointment, having walked the 

 whole distance this time, and by a roundabout 

 course; and the hummer was waiting for me. 

 " You are late," I fancied him saying ; but of 

 course that was my "pathetic fallacy." In the 

 course of my stay he " gave me three sittings," 

 as my penciled memorandum puts it, and I saw 

 that his forehead and a spot behind the ear were 

 of the same dazzling, indescribably beautiful color 

 as the gorget and ruff. The whole crown I did 

 not see illuminated, but the forehead sufficed. 



At one time a ruby-crowned kinglet came and 

 played about in the same bush, and in that com- 

 parison he seemed almost a giant. " The hum- 

 mer is smaller and smaller," my pencil remarked, 

 " every time I see him." I might have addressed 

 him as Charles Lamb addressed the shade of 

 Elliston, when he saw that worthy, all his stage 

 trappings removed, seated in Charon's boat, 

 " Bless me, how little you look." 



The identification was now complete. I had 

 doubled my list of hummingbirds, having seen 

 but one species in all my previous years, and the 

 next morning I might reasonably have turned 



