Now we come to the Splendid Coquette, a little bird not half the size of a golden-crested wren, which is the smallest bird that we, in this country, know anything about, smaller, even, than the common wren. _He_ has a crest, too--this little Humming-bird--a very fine one of chestnut feathers, not sticking up on the top of the head, as so many crests do, but going backwards after the head has come to an end, so that it makes a little chestnut feather-awning for the neck to be under. But just where they spring from the head each of these chestnut feathers is black, and at their tips, too, they have all a little black spot, and this makes them look still prettier than if they were all chestnut. When the little bird spreads out this fine crest of his, like a fan--for he can do that--all the feathers in it stand out separately from each other, and then he looks like a little sun in the centre of his own rays. Yes, a sun, because he is so very bright. He has a gorget (or perhaps you would prefer to call it a lappet) of feathers on his throat and breast, of the most glorious, radiant green colour, and from it there shoot out--one on each side--a pair of the very loveliest and most delicate little fairy-wings that ever you _never_ saw--for I feel sure that you never _have_ seen anything at all like them. I do not mean, of course, that they are real wings, to fly with, no--it would be funny if a bird had _two_ pairs of _that_ kind--but ornamental ones, wings for the little hen Humming-bird, who has none, to look at and say, "How beautiful! How _extraordinarily_ becoming!" Each of these dear little wings is made by a few delicate, long, slender feathers of a light chestnut colour, the same as the feathers of the crest, only, instead of being tipped with black, these ones are tipped with a spot of the same lovely green that there is on the throat and breast. The longest of them, which is in the middle, is nearly an inch long--which is very long indeed when you think how small the little birdie is--and it stands out a quarter of an inch beyond the two next longest ones on each side of it, and these are almost a quarter of an inch longer than the ones that come next. If you hold out your hand with the fingers spread out, and imagine the middle one a good deal longer and the little finger and thumb much shorter, then you will know the shape of these dear little fairy-wings; only, of course, feathers are much more elegant than fingers--even than pretty little fingers. Think how pretty something in muslin or puff-lace, like that, on a dress would be!--but it is ever, oh, _ever_ so much prettier on a little Humming-bird, in little chestnut feathers with little green spangles at their tips. And that is why I call them "fairy-wings," for I think if any pair of wings that are _not_ a fairy's could be pretty enough _for_ a fairy, those would be the ones.