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? CHAPTER VIII Some very Bright Humming-Birds