8 
LAND OF SUNSHINE 
fashioned only for clinging. They dart in and out of the gar¬ 
den spray, back and forth like a rainbow flash ; or they sit 
under the dripping leaves of a rosebush and bathe in the dew. 
This last is a common sight after a fog, and the lover of birds, 
out early, will take a hearty laugh at the proceedings. In the 
sunlight, under the drip of the dew, sits an animated bunch of 
luster, out of whose tiny black eye shines the unmistakable 
sign of intelligence. On the top of the head is a close-fitting 
crown of metallic scales meeting a throat-shield of the same 
effect. The irridescence is a lilac crimson, and the lay of the 
metallic scales is interrupted only by a line from the base of 
the beak through the eye. The back and middle tail-feathers 
are a golden green, other parts whitish, glossed with green. 
The female is plainer, with no scales on the head and throat. 
In a wet year the Anna hummer nests low. If we have had 
early rains, and, by the last of December or the first of Janu¬ 
ary, see these birds picking at last year’s pampas tufts, or at 
the spider webs spread out on the hedges, we know we shall 
find the nest no higher than our head, or possibly than our 
elbow. In a dry season the bird selects a eucalyptus branch 
a hundred feet above, where she incubates amid the fragrance, 
and looks down from her fairy perch like a fragment from 
the stars. 
The eggs of the Anna hummer (as are those of all the 
family) are two in number, the size of a Boston baked bean, 
and pure white. The engravings show the growth of the 
young, the shape and tiny size of the nest, and the trustfulness 
of the mother bird as no pen can portray them. 
The White Indian. 
Gt T is eighteen years since a slender young man with 
I long yellow hair and an almost unearthly ambidex- 
X terity of utterance, made the athletes forgotten in 
their own arena—a “ Spring Meeting” of the Har¬ 
vard Athletic Association. The great Hemenway Gym¬ 
nasium was jammed with the iridescent crowds such a col¬ 
lege contest brings out. And it was a good meeting. Bird¬ 
like Fay, a rufous Apollo, had set a standard of grace not 
yet lowered. And Squibb, and many another hero of 
long ago, had wrought such feats of forearms and biceps 
as the $50-a-week professionals do not find it worth the 
hazard of their necks to try. And Dr. Sargent, director, 
had capped the climax with his rocking chair miracles in the flying 
trapeze. 
But they were all as though they had not been, when the young Medi¬ 
cine flower, Te-na-tsa-li, stalked out from under the balconies, followed 
in single file by his impassive brown brethren ; and harangued the mul¬ 
titude, and then promoted and presided over a strange ceremonial dance. 
None but the young men who had jeoparded their bones to win the soft 
patter of gloved hands, remembered any more the “ events of the day.” 
Pasadena, Cal. 
