May 
one day a large and unknown specimen. For 
four days and four nights I cherished the delu- 
sion that it was a bittern—a slightly vulgar 
and questionable member of the heron family. 
Not that this was anything to be particularly 
_ boastful about, but it was at least something 
fresh, and like other people I sometimes like to 
make new acquaintances, even if I drop them. 
I had a faint misgiving, however, that I was in 
error, and consulted his remains in the Museum. 
Every ornithologist will sympathize with me in 
my mortification when I found that it was no 
bittern, but only an zmmature night heron! 
Of all the mistakes one can make in this pur- 
suit, the most humiliating is that of reckoning 
some half-grown wretch as a new species. 
Among some blossoms that kindly open be- 
fore the leaves are out, appeared, on the 5th of 
the month, the first humming-bird—the most 
exquisite gem in all the galaxy. An admirable 
creation from almost every point of view—as 
delicate as the cobweb that can cause its death, 
of such emotional intensity that even terror alone 
may quench its life, of ethereal mould and re- 
splendent color, this tropical atom is, notwith- 
standing, lion-hearted to attack even a man in de- 
fence of its nest. Valor and grace ne’er found 
151 
