THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
241 
the colors of the rainbow in a few birds—nay, 
sometimes in a single specimen! Take the 
orioles, tanagers, finches, jays, with a hum¬ 
ming-bird or two, and you make up an ani¬ 
mated picture that will dazzle and delight the 
dullest vision. 
“ Examine the splendid collection of parrots 
and macaws in the Zoological Garden at Phila¬ 
delphia, and notice what a rich display of bril¬ 
liant coloring will be found in their plumage. 
The egotistic struttings of the gaudy peacock 
have some show of justification with such a 
magnificent spread of jewelled feathers, chal¬ 
lenging the very genius of colors to an emu¬ 
lation ; for even if the tints are all correctly 
blended, the matchless iridescence of his plum¬ 
age will baffle all efforts to reproduce it. 
“ In the shaping and adorning of these feath¬ 
ered brilliants it would seem as though Nature 
in some exceedingly happy and capricious mood 
had taken her patterns and dyes, and shaped and 
splashed to the fullest bent of her fancy, and 
then tossed her work into the air, gem after 
gem, until her sportive imagination could go 
no farther; and the result was, that the hun¬ 
dreds of tiny humming-birds went buzzing and 
21 Q 
