One of the most beautiful of all the Humming-birds (but we can say that of so many) is the Rainbow Humming-bird. It is very large for a Humming-bird, so what _will_ you think when I say that its body is about the size of a little wren's, a bird which, perhaps, you had been thinking was the smallest bird there is. Why, a Humming-bird that is as big, or almost as big, as a wren is a very big Humming-bird indeed--in fact quite a gigantic one. But now, the tail of this Humming-bird is very different to a wren's, and makes it look still bigger because it is so long--three to three and a half inches, I should think--and such a wonderful shape. It is forked, so you must think of a swallow first if you want to imagine it; but then you must imagine that the two feathers which make the fork of a swallow's tail are curved outwards like two little scimitars, so that their tips are six inches apart from each other. Indeed they gleam as brightly as any scimitar does in the sun, but it is not like steel that they gleam, for they are of the most lovely deep, rich, violet-blue that you can imagine, such a colour as was never seen anywhere else out of the rainbow; and now I come to think of it, what these lovely feathers are most like is two little violet rainbows set back to back. You can think how lovely they look as they go darting through the air, and I must tell you that the beautiful violet-blue sends out gleams of other kinds of blues--lighter ones--which are just as beautiful as the violet itself. On the opposite page you see the picture of a Humming-bird that is a good deal like this one. But it is not the same, so the tail is not _quite_ the same either.