7O HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. 



rhage from the lungs, and gave him over at once. We, 

 less scientific, declared that we had only cut his little 

 tongue by drawing out the filaments of cotton, and that he 

 would do well enough in time, as it afterward appeared 

 he did, for from that day there was no more bleeding. 

 In the course of the second day he began to take short 

 flights about the room, though he seemed to prefer to 

 return to us, perching on our fingers or heads or 

 shoulders, and sometimes choosing to sit in this way 

 for half an hour at a time. "These great giants," he 

 seemed to say to himself, " are not bad people after all ; 

 they have a comfortable way with them ; how nicely they 

 dried and warmed me ! Truly a bird might do worse than 

 to live with them." 



So he made up his mind to form a fourth in the little 

 company of three that usually sat and read, worked and 

 sketched, in that apartment, and we christened him " Hum, 

 the son of Buz." He became an individuality, a character, 

 whose little doings formed a part of every letter, and some 

 extracts from these will show what some of his little ways 

 were. 



" Hum has learned to sit upon my finger, and eat his 

 sugar and water out of a teaspoon with most Christian-like 

 decorum. He has but one weakness, he will occasionally 

 jump into the spoon and sit in his sugar and water, and 

 then appear to wonder where it goes to. His plumage is 



