So, you see, we have been able to find one other handsome Humming-bird, at any rate. And then there is the Hermit Humming-bird. I must just describe him. His head and neck are--brown, the whole of his back is--brown, his wings, his throat, and his breast are--brown, and all the rest of him is--brown. Why, then, he is all brown, without any colours at all, unless there are some lying asleep, and ready to wake up and dart out all of a sudden, in the way I have explained to you. No, there are no colours, either asleep or awake, or, at any rate, hardly any. Compared to the Humming-birds I have been telling you about, this one is just a plain, dull bird, as plain and as dull, almost, as his wife, for that, you know, is what the wives of Humming-birds are like. Then is he a Humming-bird at all? Surely he is not one; he must be some other bird. Oh no, he is not. He is a Humming-bird, but he is a Hermit Humming-bird. I have not told you before--but now I will tell you--that there are some Humming-birds--in fact a good many--that have no bright colours at all, and _they_ are called hermits. A hermit, you know, is a person who lives in a cell or cave, and wears a long, brown gown, with a hood at one end of it for his head, and never dresses gaily or goes out to see things, but has what _we_ should consider a very dull life; only as _he_ likes it that makes it all right--for _him_. So these dull-coloured Humming-birds are called hermits, not because they live in cells, because, of course, they do not, but because they have no bright things to wear, but only brown gowns, like hermits. But now as Humming-birds used once to be sunbeams, and are still _living_ sunbeams that have been changed into birds, how does it happen that any of them have become hermits, with nothing showy about them? That is a thing which requires an explanation, so it is lucky that there is one all ready for it in the next chapter. Not all the things that require an explanation are so lucky as that. Some of them go on requiring one all their lives, and yet never get what they require. I have known several of that sort. CHAPTER IX Hermit Humming-Birds and Two Other Ones