6 



SIX MONTHS IN MEXICO. 



and J une numbers were found in the Botanic 

 Garden, in the centre of the city, and by 

 offering a reward to the Indians many were 

 brought to me alive. I had at one time 

 nearly seventy in cages, which with attention 

 and care I kept living for some weeks ; and 

 could I have devoted my whole time to 

 them, I had no doubt of the possibility of 

 bringing them alive to Europe. The ac- 

 counts of their being so fierce and untameable 

 as to beat themselves to death when confined 

 are not true; no bird is more easily recon- 

 ciled to its new situation. It is true they are 

 seldom off the wing, but they never strike 

 themselves against the cage, nor the glass of a 

 window ; they remain, as it were, suspended 

 in the air, in a space barely sufficient for 

 them to move their wings, and the humming 

 noise proceeds entirely from the surprising 

 velocity with which they perform the motion, 

 by ^hich they keep their bodies in the air, 



