A YOUNG NATURALIST. 249 



And the Indian went away, saluting the valiant mother with 

 so many waves of his hat that the poor bird must have thought 

 her last hour had come. 



"What do these beautiful little birds feed upon, M. Sumi- 

 chrastr' 



" On the juices of flowers and small insects. Look ! there is 

 one hovering, and its wings are moving too fast for us to see 

 them. Don't stir ! I see a branch so covered with blue flowers 

 that it can hardly fail to attract the bird. Now it is settled above 

 one of the corollas, and plunges its head into it without ceasing to 

 beat with its wings. Its cloven tongue soon sucks out the honey 

 concealed in the flower, and its little ones will greet it when it 

 gets back Avith open beaks to receive their share of the spoil." 



" They are funny birds, those," said I'Encuerado to Lucien. 

 " In three months — that is, in October — they will go to sleep, and 

 will not wake up till April." 



" Is that true, father ? " 



" I rather fancy that they migrate." 



" Now, don't teach Chanito wrongly," said I'Encuerado, repeat- 

 ing a common phrase of mine ; " the huitzitzilins do not migrate ; 

 they go to sleep." 



" This fact has been so often related to me by Indians living 

 in the woods," said my friend, " that I feel almost disposed to 

 believe it." 



" Don't they say the same of the bats and swallows ? and yet 

 we know they change their habitat." 



" Yes ; but with regard to humming-birds, they assert that 

 they have seen them asleep. At all events, it is certain that they 

 disappear in the winter." 



The clucking of a bird of the gallinaceous order, called the 

 Hocco — Crax aledor — interrupted our discussion, and my two 

 companions carefully proceeded towards a dark-foHaged tree, a 

 little outside the edge of the forest. The clucking suddenly 

 ceased ; we heard the report of a gun, and I saw three of them 

 fly away into the forest. L'Encuerado was climbing a tree when 

 I came up, for the bird he had shot had lodged among the 

 branches. 



