The few greenish-brown feathers sparingly scattered among the down in the wings, were insufficient to furnish me with a clew toward a knowledge of its species. That it was a humming-bird, however, or one of an allied genus, seemed apparent from the length of its bill. The king of the humming-birds, as the Creoles call the topaz-throat (_Trochilus pella_ of naturalists), is the almost exclusive frequenter of Marabella Creek, where the overspreading foliage--here and there admitting stray gleams of sunshine--forms a cool and shady, though sombre retreat, peculiarly adapted to his disposition; and I strongly suspect that it was the nest of this species which the spider had favored with a visit. After making a minute inspection of the two bodies, we consigned them to a watery grave; both of us convinced that, whatever the detractors of Madame Merian may urge, that lady was correct in assigning to the bush-spider an ambition which often soars above the insect, and occasionally tempts him to make a meal of some stray feathered denizen of the forest. This conclusion, I may add, was fully confirmed some few weeks after, by my witnessing a still more interesting rencontre between members of the several races. "Eat the eater," is one of Nature's laws; and, after preventing its accomplishment by depriving the spider of his food, strict justice would probably have balked us of ours. Fortunately not--one of the heartiest breakfasts I ever made, and one of the tenderest and most succulent of meat, was that very morning. Well I remember exclaiming, at that time, "_Hæc olim meminisse juvabit!_"--it was my first dish of stewed monkey and yams. PROMISE UNFULFILLED.--A TALE OF THE COAST-GUARD.