BIRDS'-NESTS 115 



alone should thrive, devouring, as it were, all the 

 rest, is one of those freaks of Nature in which she 

 would seem to discourage the homely virtues of 

 prudence and honesty. Weeds and parasites have 

 the odds greatly against them, yet they wage a very 

 successful war nevertheless. 



The woods hold not such another gem as the nest 

 of the hummingbird. The finding of one is an 

 event to date from. It is the next best thing to 

 finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, 

 both by chance. One was placed on the horizontal 

 branch of a chestnut-tree, with a solitary green leaf, 

 forming a complete canopy, about an inch and a 

 half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of 

 the bird past my ears, as I stood under the tree, 

 caused me to suspect that I was intruding upon 

 some one's privacy; and, following it with my eye, 

 I soon saw the nest, which was in process of con- 

 struction. Adopting my usual tactics of secreting 

 myself near by, I had the satisfaction of seeing the 

 tiny artist at work. It was the female, unassisted 

 by her m^te. At intervals of two or three minutes 

 she would appear with a small tuft of some cottony 

 substance in her beak, dart a few times through and 

 around the tree, and alighting quickly in the nest, 

 arrange the material she had brought, using her 

 breast as a model. 



The other nest I discovered in a dense forest on 

 the side of a mountain. The sitting bird was dis- 

 turbed as I passed beneath her. The whirring of 

 her wings arrested my attention, when, after a short 



