340 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



out of sight, and their bodies ahnost or quite naked, except for a line 

 of grayish down along the middle of the back." Isabella McC. Lem- 

 mon (1901) speaks of the young birds as "dark slate-color, with a 

 little yellowish fuzz on the bodies, exceedingly thin necks, three- 

 cornered heads and short yellow bills," and of birds slightly older, 

 Brewster (1890) says: "Their bills were perhaps a quarter of an 

 inch long, wide at the base, and in general shape not unlike the bill 

 of a Dendroica^ but more depressed." 



Bendire (1895) states that the young "are born blind, and do not 

 open their eyes until they are about a week old." These minute, 

 naked, helpless bits of life grow, as Bendire (1895) says, "amazingly 

 fast, and when about ten days old they are about as large as their 

 parents." Torrey (1892), however, speaks of the brood which he 

 watched closely until after they left the nest, as developing more 

 slowly. He says: "Though at least eleven days old, the tiny birds 

 * * * were still far from filling the cup." He describes thus the 

 behavior of the parent as she brooded her young a few days after 

 they had hatched: "It was noticeable that, while sitting upon the 

 young, she kept up an almost incessant motion, as if seeking to warm 

 them, or perhaps to develop their muscles by a kind of massage treat- 

 ment. A measure of such hitchings and fidgetings might have meant 

 nothing more than an attempt to secure for herself a comfortable 

 seat; but when they were persisted in for fifteen minutes together, it 

 was difficult not to believe that she had some different end in view. 

 Possibly, as human infants get exercise by dandling on the mother's 

 knee, the baby humming-bird gets his by this parental kneading 

 process." 



Torrey's birds were hatched on June 30. "On the 12th [of July]," 

 he writes, "just after the little ones had been fed, one of them got 

 his wings for the first time above the wall of the nest, and fluttered 

 them with much spirit." On July 19 the first young bird left the 

 nest. Mr. Torrey continues : 



I was standing on the wall with my glass leveled upon the nest, when I 

 saw him exercising his wings. The action was little more pronounced than 

 had been noticed at intervals during the last three or four days, except that 

 he was more decidedly on his feet. Suddenly, without making use of the 

 rim of the nest, as I should have expected him to do, he was in the air, hover- 

 ing in the prettiest fashion, and in a moment more had alighted on a leafless 

 twig slightly above the level of the nest, and perhaps a yard from it * * * 

 [Soon] the youngster was again on the wing. It was wonderful how much at 

 home he seemed — poising, backing, soaring, and alighting with aU the ease and 

 grace of an old hand. 



Illustrating the activity which precedes the flight from the nest, 

 Mr. Torrey says of the other young bird : "He grew more and more 

 restless ; as my companion — a learned man — expressed it, he began to 



