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On looking more closely, it was discovered that other creatures, as well as the humming-birds, had been served in a similar manner. To Basil, Norman, and Francois, the thing was quite inexplicable, but Lucien understood well enough what it meant. Why it follows such a practice Lucien could not tell, as naturalists are not agreed upon this point.
The ricochets are in the majority, for with the vast number of intervening walls and trees and the sloping Chinese roofs which pen us in on all sides, the nickel, iron and lead of Mannlicher and Mauser rifles and Tower muskets are soon converted into mere discordant humming-birds, whose greatest inconvenience is their sound. Never have I heard such a humming as these spent ricochets make.
And here too, for the first time, I had the opportunity of examining his great collection of Ecuadorean humming-birds and a magnificent lot of Guatemalan quetzal skins, among them probably the finest ever collected. We left Medellin on January 8th; went by rail to Puebla, then to Oaxaca.
This shawl belonged to my paternal grandmother whom I never knew and who rests amid flowers in a humble cemetery of the Antilles. May the humming-birds glitter and cry above her deserted grave, and the tobacco-plants with their rosy bells delight her memory ... I have never seen the portrait which represents her. But I know she had a reputation for goodness and beauty.
They went out at a back-door which led to a beautiful walk under a long trellis, which was covered with honey-suckles and roses. Malleville stopped to get a rose, and Phonny to admire two humming-birds that were playing about the honey-suckles. He wished very much that he could catch one of them, but he could not even get near them.
Unfortunately, they are far from being as agreeable to the taste as they are to the sight, and consequently are very seldom gathered. I was greatly amused with the humming-birds, of which I saw a considerable number of the smallest species. Nothing can be more graceful and delicate than these little creatures.
Gradually it forced its energies into her brain, released her spirit from its apathy, buried memory under the fresher impressions of time. A year from the day of her return, if there were deep and subtle changes in her face and carriage, which added ten years to her appearance, she was more beautiful to experienced eyes than when she had flowered for the humming-birds.
"I was lingering in the garden among the delicate flowers you gave me Mary; and the green and golden humming-birds charmed me so that I could not tear myself away," replied our hero, as he sat down between the brother and sister.
From the extremities of the avenues may be seen bears, intoxicated with the grape, staggering upon the branches of the elm-trees; caribous bathe in the lake; black squirrels play among the thick foliage; mocking-birds, and Virginian pigeons not bigger than sparrows, fly down upon the turf, reddened with strawberries; green parrots with yellow heads, purple woodpeckers, cardinals red as fire, clamber up to the very tops of the cypress-trees; humming-birds sparkle upon the jessamine of the Floridas; and bird- catching serpents hiss while suspended to the domes of the woods, where they swing about like creepers themselves.... All here ... is sound and motion.... When a breeze happens to animate these solitudes, to swing these floating bodies, to confound these masses of white, blue, green, and pink, to mix all the colors and to combine all the murmurs, there issue such sounds from the depths of the forests, and such things pass before the eyes, that I should in vain endeavor to describe them to those who have never visited these primitive fields of nature."
Now fish with scales as brilliant as the feathers of humming-birds would be caught; now the blacks would be warning their companions to beware of the black and yellow or yellow snakes.
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