OTHER NEIGHBORS IN THE TREES. 215 



MY AERIAL VISITOR. 



1. To-day, Estelle, your special messenger, the hum- 

 ming-bird, comes darting to our oriel, my Orient. As I 

 sat sewing, his sudden, unexpected whirr made me look up. 

 How did he know that the very first Japan pear-bud opened 

 this morning ? Flower and bird came together by some 

 wise prescience. 



2. He has been sipping honey from your passion-flowers, 

 and now has come to taste my blossoms. What bright- 

 winged thought of yours sent him so straight to me, across 

 that wide space of sea and land ? Did he dart like a sun- 

 beam all the way ? There were many of them voyaged to- 

 gether ; a little line of wavering light pierced the dark that 

 night. 



3. A large, brave heart has our bold sailor of the upper 

 deep. Old Pindar never saw our little pet, this darling of 

 the New World ; yet lie says : 



" Were it the will of Heaven, an osier-bough 

 Were vessel safe enough the seas to plow." 

 Here he is, safe enough, not one tiny feather ruffled — all 

 the intense life of the tropics condensed into this one live 

 jewel — the glance of the sun on emeralds and rubies. Is it 

 soft, downy feathers that take this rich metallic glow, 

 changing their hue with every rapid turn ? 



4. Other birds fly : he darts quick as the glance of the 

 eye ; sudden as thought, he is here, he is there. No float- 

 ing, balancing motion, like the lazy butterfly, who fans the 

 air with her broad sails. To the point, always to the point, 

 he turns in straight lines. How stumbling and heavy is 

 the flight of the "burly, dozing bumble-bee" beside this 

 quick intelligence ! Our knight of the ruby throat, with 

 lance in rest, makes wild and rapid sallies on this " little 

 mundane bird " — this bumble-bee — this rolling sailor, never 



