HUMMING-BIRDS. 



47 



#Mk& to a point. Upon 

 this tip he places a lump 

 of bird-lime, to make 

 which he had collected 

 the inspissated juice of the 

 bread-fruit, and chewed 

 Humming-bird j-iuNTERs. it to the consistency of 



soft wax. Scattered over 

 the savanna are many clumps of flowering bushes, 

 over whose crimson and snowy blossoms humming- 

 birds are dashing, inserting their beaks in the hon- 

 eyed corollas ; after active forays, resting upon some 

 bare twig, pruning and preening their feathers. Cau- 

 tiously creeping toward a bush upon which one of 

 these little beauties is resting, the hunter extends the 

 palm-rib, with its treacherous coating of gum. The 

 bird eyes it curiously, but fearlessly, as it approaches 

 his resting-place, even pecking at it ; but the next mo- 

 ment he is dangling helplessly, beating the air with 



