tremely emaciated. Others, on the contrary, which were supplied twice a day with fresh flowers from the woods or garden, placed in a room with windows merely closed with moschetto gauze-netting, through which minute insects were able to enter, lived twelve months, at the expiration of which time their liberty was granted them, the person who kept them having had a long journey to perform. The room was kept artificially warmed during the winter months, and these in Lower Louisiana are seldom so cold as to produce ice. On examining an orange-tree which had been placed in the room where these humming birds were kept, no appearance of a nest was to be seen, although the birds had frequently been observed caressing each other. Some have been occasionally kept confined in our Middle Districts, but I have not ascertained that any one survived a winter."

Here are some curious facts concerning the most remarkable variety of the species--the Ruffed Humming Bird. They are from Nuttall's and Townsend's notes

"We began," says the first of these enterprising travellers, "to meet with this species near the Blue Mountains of the Columbia River, in the autumn as we proceeded to the west. These were all young birds, and were not very easily distinguished from those of the common species of the same age. We now for the first time (April 16) saw the males in numbers, darting, buzzing, and squeaking in the usual manner of their tribe; but when engaged in collecting its accustomed sweets in all the energy of life, it seemed like a breathing gem, or magic carbuncle of glowing fire, stretching out its gorgeous ruff, as if to emulate the sun itself in splendor. Towards the close of May the females were sitting, at which time the males were uncommonly quarrelsome and vigilant, darting out at me as I approached the tree probably near the nest, looking like an angry coal of brilliant fire, passing within very little of my face, returning several times to the attack, sinking and darting with the utmost velocity, at the

same time uttering a curious, reverberating, sharp bleat, somewhat similar to the quivering twang of a dead twig, yet also so much like the real bleat of some small quadruped, that for some time I searched the ground instead of the air for the actor in the scene. At other times the males were seen darting up high in the air and whirling about each other in great anger and with much velocity. After these manovres the aggressor returned to the same dead twig, where for days he regularly took his station with all the courage and angry vigilance of a king-bird. The angry hissing or bleating note of this species seems something like wht' t' t't' tshvee, tremulously uttered as it whirls and sweeps. through the air, like a musket ball, accompanied also by something like the whirr of the Night-Hawk. On the 29th of May I found a nest of this species in a forked branch of the Nootka Bramble, Rubus Nutkanus. The female was sitting on two eggs of the same shape and color as those of the common species. The nest, also, was perfectly similar, but somewhat deeper. As I approached, the female came hovering round the nest, and soon after, when all was still, she resumed her place contentedly."

Dr. Townsend's note is as follows

"Nootka Sound Humming Birds, Trochilus rufus, Ahpuets-rinne of the Chinooks. On a clear day the male may be seen to rise to a great height in the air, and descend instantly near the earth, then mount again to the same altitude as at first, performing in the evolution the half of a large circle. During the descent it emits a strange and astonishingly loud note, which can be compared to nothing but the rubbing together of the limbs of trees during a high wind. I heard this singular note repeatedly last spring and summer, but did not then discover to what it belonged. I did not suppose it be

a bird at all, and least of all a humming bird. The observer thinks it almost impossible that so small a creature can be capable of producing so much sound. I have never observed this habit on a dull or cloudy day."

CHAPTER V.

SONG OF THE CHILDREN ABOUT SPRING.

THE HOURS.

I.

They the pure of heart never do grow old,
For spring-time finds them full of love to-day,
As three-score summers since when curls of gold,
Shone on those temples that are delved and gray.

They come! they come! with the golden hair
And sky-blue eyes-they all are there!
List! O list ye!-the song they sing,

Their song is a light song-light song-
A song about spring!

THE CHILDREN.

II.

We are younger forever as truth must be,

For we cannot grow old in simplicity.

We give out our lives as those streams do the sun,
That pratt'ling o'er pebble-beds flash as they run.
We sing in our joy-sing in our grief-
Must sing to be gladder-sing for relief,

Now we are so happy-must let our hearts go,
Ah sing we will-sing we must merrily O!—
Right cherrily O! Spring is coming again,
A jubilant earth is awaiting her reign!

We are going to tell you the tale of mirth,

A right merry, a joyous tale,

About how this Spring cometh back to the earth, And everything shouteth all hail!

Since Winter must flee;—

An old tyrant he!

III.

We hate an old fellow

Whose beard is gray

Who can't be made mellow,
Who wont be gay,

Who is all so shrivelléd that he hath no blood,
And whose breath is so mortal cold,

That he couldn't be pleasant if pleasant he would-
Then he is so piteous old!

Yet though he be old he is wonderous strong,
And weary from far is his flight,

And if he but pipeth his terrible song,
I ween you would shake with affright.

For though he be thin, he is a lithe eld one,
And he hath too, some fierce odd ways—
It's an awsome kind of a glee that has run
Through such mirth of his all his days!

He has an ugly knack of making fun,

When he sinketh tall ships at sea,

A gurgling whirl-of-a-laugh that hath spun

Them down! down, to where Death should be!

Then over mountains goes whistling to play
With 'wildered and wan Traveller,

And heapeth and hurtleth snow drifts in his way,
Until he forgeteth to fear.

And now he lies down beneath white sheets of home,
Sleeping slowly to dreamless rest,

While shrieking winds, as his senses grow numb,
Are changed for the harps of the blest.

And where the great city uplifteth its crest,
He will find how the poor folk hide,

Ah! that is the sport which he loveth the best,
In through the rough crannies to glide!

And fiercely go singing beneath each tatter,

Then hiss at them when they make wails, And pierce and pinch them until their teeth chatter, And their lips grow blue as their nails.

Then he loveth to slam at the rich man's door,
And rattle and bang through his halls,
And taunt him with creakings and dismally roar,
"Till the fur-wrapped thing he appalls;
And it shivers cringing, to think of the Poor
That are dying without its walls.

IV.

He comes from a dreary, glittering land,

Where strange bright horrors dwell, You could not expect he'd be very bland, Whose playmates were so fell.

For all monstrous shapes like the Lion Seal,
Tusked Walrus and White Bear,

With the long Whales plunging, roar and reel
In uncouth gambols there.

Amidst great seas on the air uplifted,

Their icy walls wind-torn,