. The bird . eath,nothingness. To this aU-absorbing abyss of devouring death, of famished life,what does God oppose to re-assure us ? Another abyss, not lessfamished, thirsty of life, but less implacable to man. I see the Bird,and I breathe ! What ! is it in you, ye living flowers, ye winged topazes andsapphires, that I shall find my safety ? Your saving vehemence it is,excited to the purification of this superabundant and furious fecimdity,that alone renders practicable the entrance to this dangerous realmof faery. Were you absent, jealous Nature would perform her mys-terious labour of solita
. The bird . eath,nothingness. To this aU-absorbing abyss of devouring death, of famished life,what does God oppose to re-assure us ? Another abyss, not lessfamished, thirsty of life, but less implacable to man. I see the Bird,and I breathe ! What ! is it in you, ye living flowers, ye winged topazes andsapphires, that I shall find my safety ? Your saving vehemence it is,excited to the purification of this superabundant and furious fecimdity,that alone renders practicable the entrance to this dangerous realmof faery. Were you absent, jealous Nature would perform her mys-terious labour of solitary fermentation, and not even the most daringsavant would venture upon observing her. Who am I here ? Andhow shall I defend myself ? What power would be sufficient ? The 136 THE COMBAT. elephant, tlie ancient mammoth, would perish defenceless against amillion of deadly darts. Who will brave them ? The eagle or thecondor ? No; a people far more mighty—the intrepid and the in-numerable legion of Humming-birds, colibris, and their brothers of every hue, livewith impunity in these gleaming solitudes where d?inger lurkson every side, among the most venomous insects, and upon thosemournful plants whose very shade kills. One of them (crested,green and blue), in the Antilles, suspends his nest to the mostterrible and fatal of trees, to the spectre whose fatal glance seems tofreeze your blood for ever, to the deadly manchineal. Wonder of wonders ! It ia this paiToquet which boldly crops thefi-uits of the fearful tree, feeds upon them, assumes their livery, andappears, from its sinister green, to draw the metallic lustre of itstriumphant wings. Life in these winged flames, the humming-bird and the colibri,is so glowing, so intense, that it dares every poison. They beat theirwings with such swiftness that the eye cannot count the pulsations;yet, meanwhile, the bird seems motionless completely inert and inactive. THE TROPICAL REGIONS. 137 He maintains a continual cry of ho
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