BIRD-NESTING WITH J3URROUGHS 



25 



Doubtless Mr. Burroughs could have given equally in- 

 teresting accounts of other of his bird neighl)ors to whom he 

 introduced me that day and the next, and whose portraits I 

 present with only passing comment. 



The Hummer, for instance, which, with rare considera- 

 tion for the needs of bird photography, had placed her nest 

 in the low sweeping limli of an apple tree, was an old ac- 

 quaintance of his, and no detail of her domestic affairs, from 



Hummer Feeding Youm 



the building of the nest to the appearance of the young, had 

 escaped him. Acquaintance, I say, rather than a friend, for 

 in spite of the fact that her nest was within a few feet of a 

 pathway, the suspicious little creature invariably darted 

 from it whenever any one approached within twenty feet of 

 her. However, she returned in four or five minutes, some- 

 times alighting and settling in the nest as though with one 

 movement, at others perching on its edge, when the two sur- 

 prisingly short bills of her half -fledged young could be seen 

 projecting slightly beyond the rim of their downy home. 

 This pose preceded what Mr. Torrey has so well described 

 as the ''frightful looking act" of feeding, of which the ac- 

 companying picture shows the attitude assumed by the par- 

 ent. 



