::::;::::=»x TWO BiRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO ;*::::::::: 



of white eggs. A little later he had appeared as an 

 ugly, naked, short-billed hummerling, sharing the cup 

 of plant-down with his sister, and peering over the 

 rim of the lichen-covered cradle. 



We saw him only in his death — the only time we 

 have ever seen a hummingbird which had died from 

 accident. The little fellow, not yet in his adult plum- 

 age, had apparently attempted to snatch an insect from 

 a bunch of burr-blossoms. Vibrating a little too near, 

 one wing had become caught, and instantly the tiny 

 body had been ^precipitated upon the mass of prickles, 

 every struggle holding it but the tighter. 



At the southern jungle-edge of the tangle was a great 

 fig-tree, all but throttled with a vine, which twined 

 and knotted its mighty folds about the trunk and 

 branches, until it was hard to say to which belonged 

 the leaves, to which the fruit. Large currant-like ber- 

 ries, with a black stone in each one, hung from the 

 tendrils of the vine. The lessening vitality of the an- 

 cient tree had attracted devastating insects, and its 

 vine-shadowed and strangled twigs were wreathed in 

 thousands of webs and caterpillar nests — a perfect 

 feast for all birds, insectivorous and frugi^'orous. 



In this land overflowing with life, we found now 

 and then evidences of tragedies, which had been 

 enacted in the deep silence of the woods — piles of 

 feathers, scattered bones, which told of pursuit and 

 flight, battle, surrender, and death. But we were less 



«4 308 ^ 



