Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/159

Rh Among my pleasures I must not forget the lovely humming-birds in the little garden. In the mornings, and directly after midday, one may be sure to see them hovering around the flowers, and around the red ones by preference. There are in the garden a couple of shrubs, which are now covered with most splendid red flowers, the shrub is called la coquette, and over these the little humming-birds are always hovering, they too of a splendid red, like little flames of fire. They are the most gorgeous little creatures anybody can imagine, as fat as little bulfinches and like them, having plump, brilliant breasts. They support themselves as if in the air, fluttering their wings, for a considerable time about the red flowers, into which they then dip their bills, but how gracefully I cannot describe. La coquette and her winged wooers present the most lovely spectacle. I have here seen three kinds of humming-birds. The one with the crimson colouring of morning, of which I have just spoken; a little one of a smaragdus-green and more delicate form; and a third, green with a crest of yellow rays on its head. They will sometimes all alight upon a bough, and as they fly away again, a soft, low twittering may be heard. They are quarrelsome, and pursue one another like little arrows through the air, whilst, as rivals, they approach the same flower.

Besides these most lovely little birds, I see here a black bird about as large as a jackdaw. It resembles the American blackbirds, and is called majitos or solibios (or solivios, for here there is a great confusion between “v” and “b,” and “b” and “v;” thus Havannah is frequently both written and pronounced Habannah). I see these blackbirds often sitting upon the branches of the candelabra-like peta. These queer birds are said to be a species of communists, to live in communities, to lay their eggs together, to hatch them in common, and to feed the young in the same manner, without any difference of