BUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD 341 



'ramp around.' Once he actually mounted the rim of the nest, a 

 thing which his more precocious brother had never been seen to do, 

 * * * exercising his wings till they made a cloud about him." 



C. J. Pennock, in a letter to Mr. Bent, describes a young bird 

 "standing erect on the rim of the nest moving his wings sloioly — so 

 slowly that I could see the wings distinctly — then rapidly again." 



Of the length of time the young birds remain in the nest Forbush 

 (1927) says that it "has been given by different writers as from 6 

 to 18 days. It may be possible that in the south or during a hot wave 

 in the north, when the female can safely leave her young without 

 danger of chilling them, that she may procure enough food for them 

 to develop wings to the flight stage in a short time; but my New 

 England records of this period run from 14 to 28 days." 



During this long period of time the young are fed by regurgita- 

 tion. Torrey (1892) gives a vivid description of the operation, 

 viewed from close at hand : "The feeding process, which I had been 

 so desirous to see, was of a sort to make the spectator shiver. The 

 mother, standing on the edge of the nest, with her tail braced against 

 its side, like a woodpecker or a creeper, took a rigidly erect position, 

 and craned her neck until her bill was in a perpendicular line above 

 the short, wide-open, upraised beak of the little one, who, it must be 

 remembered, was at this time hardly bigger than a humble-bee. Then 

 she thrust her bill for its full length down into his throat, a frightful- 

 looking act, followed by a series of murderous gesticulations, which 

 fairly made one observer's blood run cold." 



When the young bird grew larger, and its beak longer, the parent's 

 beak, Mr. Torrey says, "was thrust into his mouth at right angles," 

 and later, after the young had left the nest, she sometimes passed 

 food directly from her beak to the young bird. "If she found a choice 

 collection of spiders, for instance, she brought them in her throat (as 

 cedar-birds carry cherries), to save trips; if she had only one or two, 

 she retained them between her mandibles." 



Carl W. Schlag (1930) saj's: "In cleaning the nest the humming- 

 bird placed the droppings of the young in a line on the same 

 branch, just above the nest." 



Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1930) states that during the first few days 

 after hatching the female feeds the young by merely inserting her 

 tongue into the nestlings' throats and squirting them full of nectar 

 and tiny insects. 



Burns (1915) gives the period of incubation as 14 days. Wilbur F. 

 Smith (1920), however, says of a closely watched nest: "On June 

 2 * * * the first Q,gg was laid, and, after an interval of a day, 

 the second was laid * * *. Xhe young hatched on June 15, after 

 eleven days' incubation, during which time the nest was built higher." 



