There were numbers of immense butterflies of the most brilliant colours; and the garden was full of hummingbirds, darting backwards and forwards with wonderful swiftness, and dipping their long beaks into the flowers.

They call them chupa-mirtos--myrtle-suckers, and the Indians take them by blowing water upon them from a cane, and catching them before they have recovered from the shock.

One day we bought a cage full of them, and tried to keep them alive in our room by feeding them with sugar and water, but the poor little things pined away.

In old times the Mexicans were famous for their ornaments of humming-bird's feathers.

The taste with which they arranged feathers of many shades of colour, excited the admiration of the conquerors; and the specimens we may still see in museums are beautiful things, and their great age has hardly impaired the brilliancy of their tints.