Humming Bird, Ruby-Throated 



With dizzy wings and dainty craft, 



In green and gold, the humming-bird 

 Dashed here and there, and touched and quaffed 



The honey-dew, then flashed and whirred, 

 And vanished like a feathered shaft 



That glitters from a random bow. 



J. G. HOLLAND. 



Minutest of the feathered kind, 

 Possessing every charm combined, 

 Nature, in forming thee, design'd 



That thou should 'st be 

 A proof within how little space 

 She can confine such perfect grace, 

 Rendering thy lovely fairy race 



Beauty's epitome. 

 Thy burnished colors to bestow, 

 Her pencil in the heavenly bow 

 She dipp'd and made thy plumes to glow 



With every hue. SELECTED. 



INDIGO BIRD. INDIGO BUNTING 



I well remember watching one indigo-bird who, day 

 after day, used to fly to the lowest limb of a high tree and 

 sing his way up from branch to branch, bursting into 

 jubilant song when he reached the topmost bough. I 

 watched him climb as high into the air as he could, when, 

 against a background of blue sky and rolling white clouds, 

 the blessed little songster broke out into the blithest round 

 that ever bubbled up from a glad heart. 

 FLOKENCE A. MERRIAM. Chapman's Handbook of Birds. 21 



78 



