Perhaps, when I was telling you about the Birds of Paradise and how very, very beautiful they are, you thought they were the most beautiful birds in the whole world. They are nearly, but not quite. There are the Humming-birds—they are even more beautiful. At least they are more like jewels, and the Indians who live in the countries where they are found call them “living sunbeams.”

You can remember it by that line, which is from a poem by Mrs. Hemans, a clever lady whom your mother will tell you about. For the Indians, you know, live in America, that great country—so large that we call it “the new world”—which Columbus discovered. They do not live in India, as you might think. At least, when we talk of the Indians, it is the ones that live in America and not India that we mean. The ones that live in India we call Hindoos. It seems funny, but the reason of it is that when Columbus discovered America, he thought it was India; for it was India he had been trying to find, and he thought he had found it. But it was America, not India, and it is only in America that the beautiful Humming-birds live—birds that are so beautiful as they are want a world to themselves to live in.

Now the birds that we have been talking about—the Birds of Paradise—are not such very small birds. The largest of them is nearly as large as a crow, and even the very smallest is not so much smaller than a thrush or a starling. But the largest Humming-bird is not so large as a sparrow or chaffinch, and the smaller ones are the very smallest birds in the whole world, some of them being not so very much larger than a large humble-bee, which is quite wonderful to think of. Then they are wonderful fliers. The Birds of Paradise fly very well—quite well enough—but still there is nothing extraordinary in the way they fly. But the little Humming-birds dart about quite like lightning, and move their wings so fast that, when you look at them, they do not seem to be wings at all, but only two little hazy patches in the air, with a bright jewel between them, which is the gleaming breast of the Humming-bird. All the time their wings are moving so quickly, they make a humming sound, just as a top does when it is spinning very fast, which is why we call them Humming-birds, just as we call tops that hum very much, humming-tops.

We have named the Humming-birds from the sound they make when they fly, and the Indians from their bright radiance and the speed at which they dart about. It is from flower to flower that they dart, and whilst you are looking at one sunbeam that is dancing about one flower, all at once there is a ray of light through the air, and another sunbeam is dancing about another flower. That is what it looks like, only, really, it is the same sunbeam that has flown from one flower to another.

Sometimes when you are walking in the garden in England and looking at the geraniums in your flowerbeds, you will see a little brown moth hovering over one of them, and putting a long, slender thread-like thing that we call a proboscis (though we call an elephant's trunk a proboscis too) right down into the centre of the flower. His wings move so fast that you can hardly see them, and in a second or two he will dart away too, so quickly that you only know he is gone, and then, all of a sudden, you will see him again, hovering over another geranium and probing it with his wonderful, long, thin proboscis. It is a tube, that proboscis, and through it, the moth is sucking up the nectar of the flower, which is what it lives on. That moth is the humming-bird hawk-moth, and, if you have seen it, you have seen what looks more like a Humming-bird than anything else in England. It hovers over or under or in front of a flower, as the Humming-birds do, it keeps moving its wings in the same rapid way as they move theirs, and making the same humming noise with them, and it puts a long, slender, little brown thing, that looks something like the beak of a Humming-bird, right down into the flower, and sucks up the nectar that is in it, which is just what a Humming-bird does. So if the humming-bird moth were bright and gleaming, as Humming-birds—sunbeams—are, it would seem to be a Humming-bird and not a moth at all. But you must not think that it really would be one. Oh no, it never could be, because it is an insect, and an insect is a very different thing to a bird.

The humming-bird moth and the Humming-bird look like each other because they live in the same way and do the same things. They both fly, so they both have wings; and they both sip nectar, so they both have a long thing to stick into the flowers and suck it up with: so they look like each other, but they are not a bit the same. A petticoat, you know, looks a little like an upper skirt, for they both have to be worn round the waist, which makes them the same kind of shape, and when the skirt is part of a white dress then they are of the same colour. But think how different they really are! Why, one is a petticoat and the other is an upper skirt. So you must always remember that, though two animals look the same, they may really be very different.

Now although the Humming-birds, or living sunbeams, are all of them small birds, yet they are not all of the same size, and some are quite big compared to others, just as a peacock butterfly is quite big, compared to a tiny blue one, whilst even the tiny little blue one may be big compared to some very small moths. Then, again, their beaks are of all kinds of different shapes and lengths. Some are quite straight, whilst others are bent like a sabre or even a sickle, and one Humming-bird has his so very much bent indeed, that it looks like half of a black ring or bracelet or something else that is quite round. As for length, some are shorter than a quite short pin, whilst others are longer than a very long darning-needle.

Of course there is a reason for the beaks of Humming-birds being so different, and the reason is that they have to go into different flowers, and must fit into them as a finger fits into a fingerstall or a periwinkle into its shell. If the part of the flower that holds the nectar is straight, then the beak of the Humming-bird that feeds on the nectar of that flower must be straight too, but if it is curved, then, of course, the beak must be curved, or else how could it be pushed into it?

And if the nectary of any flower (for that is what the place that the nectar is in is called) were shaped like a corkscrew, then the beak of the Humming-bird that sucked out the nectar from that flower would have to be shaped like a corkscrew too. But there are no flowers shaped like that, and so there are no Humming-birds with corkscrew beaks, like the tail of a periwinkle. But there is a flower that has its nectary, or honey-tube, bent round into almost a half circle, and it is just that one Humming-bird that has its beak bent in the same way, that sips the nectar from that flower. No other one is able to do it, and there is no other flower that that Humming-bird can sip the nectar from.

And there are more than 400 different kinds of Humming-birds, and the beak of every one of them must fit into some flower or another, and often into a great many more than one. Oh then, what a lot of different kinds of flowers there must be, for all these beaks to fit into! Ah, there are indeed, for it is in the great forests or plains of America—the largest in the whole world—or on the slopes of the great mountain ranges there—the highest in the world except the Himalayas—that the Humming-birds live, and everywhere there are wonderful trees and wonderful flowers. As for the trees, I have told you what some of them are like in the forests of the Malay Archipelago, and in the great forests of Brazil; I think they are still larger and more wonderful. And as for the flowers that grow in those wonderful forests or on the great plains or the slopes and sides of those great, high mountains, how could I ever give you an idea of what they are like, or how should I know where to begin, when there are so many? For there are some that are like great scarlet trumpets on the outside of their petals, but when you look inside them they are like the open mouths of fierce dragons shooting out a lot of fiery-orange tongues, all forked and cloven ever so many times over, each tongue looking as if it were the tongues of twenty little hissing snakes, all tied together in a bundle and ready to dart at you. And there are some that are in bunches, and each bunch looks as if a lot of oxen had put their heads against each other and begun to grow smaller and smaller and smaller till their horns were no longer than honeysuckles, and then had disappeared altogether, except their horns, which had turned pink and stayed there. Bunches of little pink ox-horns are what those flowers look like. Then there are flowers that look as if they had almost changed into very beautiful butterflies, and others that seem to be very beautiful butterflies just changing into flowers. There are flowers that are all the colours that there are, and others that have tried all the colours that there are, and then found out new ones to be of. And there are some, too, that are only white, but so lovely that all the flowers of all the colours that there are, gaze at them and envy them. Some are so soft and delicate that, although you see them, you only seem to be dreaming of them. They make you think of heaven, and it is as if angels were kissing you. Others are like golden stars, with a stem that is like a long, long, very long piece of red string that goes tying itself round and round a great many trees, and climbing up and up them, and all the way up there are bright green leaves and the beautiful golden stars. Other strings are golden or green, and have pink or crimson stars upon them, and some of these hang down, like glowing lamps from a soft, cool, emerald ceiling. Some flowers are like little bunches of red counters that you play games with, and there is one that is like a wonderful, scarlet, shining leaf, with a thick little tail at the tip of it, twisted round in a coil. This tail is orange with cream-white spots upon it, but just at its own tip it is scarlet again, like the rest of the leaf. Such a wonderful-looking flower! There are creeping crimson nasturtiums that make the air blush in spots, azaleas with scarlet that has swooned into pink, and pink that has blushed into scarlet, and calceolarias that look like yellow flower-bubbles that fairies have blown into the air and that have come down, softly, upon delicate little stalks, and stayed there without bursting. Not all of these wonderful flowers have a scent, for scented flowers are commoner here in England than in far-off tropical countries. But a few of them have, and their scent is so exquisite that you would think it was sent from heaven.

Some of the flowers have leaves that are even more beautiful than themselves, and sometimes it is the leaves that you look at and not the flowers at all. Some of these leaves seem to be made of velvet, or something even softer and more velvety than velvet, whilst the colours in them are like the pattern of a very beautiful Turkey carpet. Others look like wonderful spear-heads or the tops of very ornamental park railings, green and red and orange, and all striped and spotted and speckled like the skin of newts or lizards. There are some leaves so large, too, that they would almost make a carpet for a very small room, and so handsome that you might go into all the haberdashers' shops in the world without finding any carpet that would look nearly so well. Some are still larger, and those are the leaves of palm-trees that bend down from high in the air, at the end of long, bending stalks that spring from the top of the small slender stem. They are of such a soft, lovely green that it makes you cool even to look up at them, and so graceful and delicate that you think of the fairies, but so big and strong that a giant might lie upon them and go to sleep, without breaking them or crushing them down. And there are wonderful cactuses—so large that they are called trees—with trunks like great, prickly, green caterpillars, and branches like smaller, prickly, green caterpillars stuck on to them by the tail. But on these ugly branches there are flowers like beautiful purple stars, whilst in the pools or the rivers, water-lilies are floating that look like large, purple flakes of snow. It is amongst flowers and leaves and trees like these that the Humming-birds fly about. Those are the wonderful goblets out of which they sip their nectar.

But now, about this sipping of nectar I have something to tell you, and when I have told it you, you will know more than a good many people do, who think they know something about Humming-birds and natural history. Well, it is this: the Humming-birds do not live only on the nectar in the flowers, as most people think they do, but on the insects that have been drowned in it, and which they suck up at the same time. You see the insects—of course I mean little insects—flies or gnats, not large moths and butterflies—get into the tubes of the flowers, to sip the nectar themselves, and they often fall into it, and are not able to get out again, but drown there; for to them it is like a little lake or pond—a pond of nectar, and, of course, very nice, but still, for all that, it drowns them. There is hardly any flower-cup that has not these drowned insects in it, and when the Humming-birds drink the nectar, they swallow the little insects at the same time. They could not live upon nectar only—they want animal food (as it is called) as well, and that is the way in which they get it. That is why when people have caught Humming-birds, and given them only nectar—or sugar and water, which is something like it—to live on, they have always died. There are no insects in it, no animal food. They had gravy, you see, but no meat, and they wanted meat as well as gravy. So they died, the poor Humming-birds. But I think it is almost better for a living sunbeam to die than to be kept living in a cage.

But now, why do the Indians call the Humming-birds living sunbeams? Oh, but you will say I have told you that, and, besides, anybody could guess. It is because they are so bright and gleaming, and hover in the air as a sunbeam dances in it, or shoot through it as quickly and as brightly as a sunbeam shoots down from the sun. Well, yes, that is one explanation; but why should there not be two (as there were about the Birds of Paradise), so that you can choose the one you like best?—for you know you are not a clever person yet. Well, there are two, for the Indians say that the Humming-birds are called living sunbeams because they really are living sunbeams, just as you are called a little girl because you are a little girl; and how could there be a simpler explanation of a thing than that?

And this is how it happened, only you must remember that it was a very, very long time ago. In those old days the sun had not long sent his beams to earth, and it was only after they came there that the things upon the earth began to live. There had been no life at all before, it had all been dark and cold; it was only when the sun's beams began to shine upon the cold, dark earth, that they warmed it into life and love. Now as first one beautiful thing and then another began to live upon the earth, the sunbeams admired them all very much, but they did not envy them, for there was nothing there quite so beautiful as a sunbeam. But one day, as they were dancing upon the waters of the sea, they heard the fishes saying to each other: “How beautiful are the sunbeams! Is there anything so beautiful as they? Our scales flash out brightly, but compared to them they are dull, even on the sunniest day. We should envy them, were they alive like us, but of course, as it is, it is different.” “Are we not alive?” said the sunbeams, and they felt sad and did not dance on the waves any more that day. Then, another day, they were dancing on the leaves, and falling through them on to the shady ground underneath, chequering it with gold. “How glorious are the sunbeams!” said the leaves to each other, “more glorious even than the birds or the butterflies that perch amongst us. Would that we were as beautiful!” “Do you envy them?” said a butterfly, who had overheard and felt annoyed; “they have neither sense nor breath, are neither born nor die. Envy us, if you will, who have all these advantages, and are so beautiful as well—much more so than yourselves—but do not, however plain you may be, envy what is not alive.” “Are we not alive?” said the sunbeams, and they were discontented and the clouds hid them, so that neither the trees nor the birds and butterflies within them seemed to be alive any more. And, again, the sunbeams were shining through a small window, where, in a wretched garret, on a still more wretched bed, lay a man who had care and sorrow—yes, and worse even than those—in his heart. “Would that I were dead!” he cried, as he clasped his hands on his forehead. “Ah, how I envy the sunbeams! But no, I will not envy them, for they are not alive, they are inanimate merely.” “Are we not alive?” said the sunbeams; “and does nobody envy us on that account?” And the wretched room that had seemed quite cheerful whilst they were there, became dark and dismal again, as they withdrew.

And now it was the sunbeams who envied everything—bird or beast, or plant or leaf or flower (even the man in the garret)—because they were alive. “It is hard that we alone should be without life,” thought they, and they complained to the sun. “Give us life,” they cried; “we are more beautiful than anything here on earth, but nothing envies us because we are not alive. It is dreadful not to be envied.” “And do you really think,” said the sun, “that you, who have given life to others, have no life yourselves? Before I sent you to the earth, it was dark and cold and lifeless. It needed you, to give it that for which you now ask. Do not, then, be discontented any more, but be assured that you have life, as much as anything that lives and grows upon the earth, though, to be sure, it is of another kind. Be satisfied, therefore, and rejoice in your loveliness.” This answer of the sun's satisfied most of the sunbeams, but there were some who were foolish and whom it did not satisfy. “Give us such life as the children of the earth enjoy!” cried these; “the life that breathes and grows, that has a shape, that is born and dies. That is the life that we would have. Be good to us, and give us that.” Then the sun said to the foolish sunbeams: “I can give you such life as you ask for, and, if you persist in asking it, I must; for you are my children and I cannot bear to see you unhappy. But remember, if I once grant you this wish, and give you the life that earth's children enjoy, you can nevermore be as you now are, or enter into my palace—my golden palace—again. Now you fly from me to the earth and from the earth back to me, but when once you have earth's life, on earth you must remain and on earth you must die. You are immortal now: when you become children of the earth you will be mortal as they are.”

But the foolish sunbeams, who could not understand what death should be, persisted, and the sun, who loved them because they were his children, had to do what they asked. So one night, when all the other sunbeams had flown back to him, he sent these foolish ones to sleep on the earth (which had never happened to them before), and there they lay all night—some in the flower-cups, some under the leaves of the trees—without giving any light at all, for when a sunbeam is asleep it can give no light. But in the morning, when their brother and sister sunbeams flew back to earth, they woke up, but the two did not know each other again, for the foolish sunbeams were not sunbeams any more—not real ones, that is to say. They flew about, still, in the forests, and glanced through the trees, and hovered over the flowers, in almost the same way as they had done before; but now they had a shape and wings, and they sipped the nectar out of the flower-cups, which was a thing that they had never even dreamed about. They were Humming-birds, and though their feathers were as bright as they had ever been, and though they had all of them long Latin names and a scientific description in books, still it was not quite the same, for it would take a lot of Latin and a lot of scientific description, to make up for not being a sunbeam. But when the Indians came to know of the occurrence, they called them “living sunbeams,” and it is easy to understand what they meant. And now you know (until you are a clever person) how Humming-birds came into the world. But you must not think that the other sunbeams—the real ones that have never changed into anything—are dead. Oh no, indeed! How could they dance and play about as they do, if they were?