HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 



A T Rye Beach, during our summer's vacation, there 

 * ^" came, as there always will to seaside visitors, two or 

 three cold, chilly, rainy days, days when the skies that 

 long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to bethink 

 themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, 

 not by drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind blew and 

 whistled, the water dashed along the ground, and careered 

 in foamy rills along the roadside, and the bushes bent 

 beneath the constant flood. It was plain that there was 

 to be no sea-bathing on such a day, no walks, no rides ; 

 and so, shivering and drawing our blanket-shawls close 

 about us, we sat down to the window to watch the storm 

 outside. The rose-bushes under the window hung dripping 

 under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a con- 

 stant shower on the spray below it. On one of these 

 lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we 

 see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the 

 tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp 

 to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we knew 

 him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and 

 glued down by the rain that he looked not much bigger 

 than a honey-bee, and as different as possible from fche 



