. Bits of bird life . so shielded by overhanging leaves as to be veryhard to find, even after one knew its position ; and yet it was,as I have said, in full sight all the time. Luckily I have a neighbor who is deeply versed in bird-lore ; to him I hastened with the story of my discovery. Anhour later we took advantage of the birds temporary absenceto inspect the nest. We found that we could easily look from the top of asmall step-ladder directly down upon the two tiny white eggslying in their cup-shaped bed of downy vegetable fibre, andcould examine closely the exquisite workmanship of the nes
. Bits of bird life . so shielded by overhanging leaves as to be veryhard to find, even after one knew its position ; and yet it was,as I have said, in full sight all the time. Luckily I have a neighbor who is deeply versed in bird-lore ; to him I hastened with the story of my discovery. Anhour later we took advantage of the birds temporary absenceto inspect the nest. We found that we could easily look from the top of asmall step-ladder directly down upon the two tiny white eggslying in their cup-shaped bed of downy vegetable fibre, andcould examine closely the exquisite workmanship of the nestitself. It was saddled upon a drooping bough some ten feet 54 A widows MITEvS. from the ground. It was made of vegetable floss, soft as thefinest wool, and was completely covered on the outside withbits of lichen to make it look like the mossy wood that sup-ported it. How anxiously did wewatch that tiny nest during the next week ! And with what joydid we find, one day,that the two eggshad changed to twoyoung humming-. birds ! Helpless, naked, pitiful-look-ing objects they were, to be sure ;but at one day old, even the best ofus are not remarkable for strength, grace or beauty. lyooking at these helpless creatures, no big-ger than bumblebees, their whole flabby bodies shaking withevery beat of their little hearts, it seemed almost impossible A WIDOWvS MITKS. 55 that they should ever attain such brilliancy of plumage, suchswiftness of motion, and such power of endurance as belongto adult humrning-birds, and that in a few wrecks. But if we wondered at the generally wretched appearanceof the newly-hatched humming-birds, *we wondered stillmore, and our wonder was mixed with great admiration,when we saw them survive the process of feeding. Doubtless this process is just the one best adapted to thecondition of young humming-birds ; but to the human spec-tator it appears nothing less than cruel and a human mother feeding her baby by thrustingdown its throat a tube, s
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1895
