inches in length of body.
It was covered with long white, silky hairs, the tail was blackish, and
the face nearly naked and flesh-colored. It was a most timid and
sensitive little thing. The woman who owned it carried it constantly in
her bosom, and no money would induce her to part with her pet. She
called it Mico. It fed from her mouth and allowed her to fondle it
freely, but the nervous little creature would not permit strangers to
touch it. If any one attempted to do so it shrank back, the whole body
trembling with fear, and its teeth chattered, while it uttered its
tremulous frightened tones. The expression of its features was like that
of its more robust brother _Midas ursulus_; the eyes, which were black,
were full of curiosity and mistrust, and it always kept them fixed on
the person who attempted to advance towards it.

In the orange groves and other parts humming-birds were plentiful, but I
did not notice more than three species. I saw a little pigmy belonging
to the genus Phaethornis one day in the act of washing itself in a brook.
It was perched on a thin branch, whose end was under water. It dipped
itself, then fluttered its wings and pruned its feathers, and seemed
thoroughly to enjoy itself alone in the shady nook which it had
chosen,--a place overshadowed by broad leaves of ferns and Heliconiae. I
thought as I watched it that there was no need for poets to invent elves
and gnomes while nature furnishes us with such marvellous little sprites
ready to hand.

THE MONARCHS OF THE ANDES.

JAMES ORTON.

[The story of the Andes and the great river to which this
mountain-chain gives birth has never been better told than in
Orton's "The Andes and the Amazon," from which we select the
following description of Chimborazo and its mountain neighbors.
James Orton, born at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1830, became a
Congregationalist clergyman, and in 1867 headed an exploring
expedition to South America. In 1873 he sought that continent
again, and died on Lake Titicaca, September 24, 1877.]

Coming up from Peru through the cinchona forests of Loja, and over the
barren hills of Assuay, the traveller reaches Riobamba seated on the
threshold of magnificence,--like Damascus, an oasis in a sandy plain,
but, unlike the Queen of the East, surrounded with a splendid retinue of
snowy peaks that look like icebergs floating in a sea of clouds.

On our left is the most sublime s