MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



flowers was almost as large as the hummingbirds, sip- 

 ping honey as they did, swift in flight as they; and both 

 my parents thought it a bird. 



They did not know the hummingbirds were feasting 

 on small insects attracted by the sweets, quite as 

 often as on honey, for they never had examined closely. 

 They had been taught, as I was, that this other constant 

 visitor to the flowers was a bird. When a child, a hum- 

 mingbird nested in a honeysuckle climbing over my 

 mother's bedroom window. My father lifted me, with 

 his handkerchief bound across my nose, on the supposition 

 that the bird was so delicate it would desert its nest and 

 eggs if they were breathed upon, to see the tiny cup of 

 lichens, with a brown finish so fine it resembled the lining 

 of a chestnut burr, and two tiny eggs. I well remember 

 he told me that I now had seen the nest and eggs of the 

 smallest feathered creature except the Lady Bird, and 

 he never had found its cradle himself. 



Every summer I discovered nests by the dozen, and 

 for several years a systematic search was made for the 

 home of a Lady Bird. One of the unfailing methods of 

 finding locations was to climb a large Bartlett pear tree 

 that stood beside the garden fence, and from an overhang- 

 ing bough watch where birds flew with bugs and worms 

 they collected. Lady Birds were spied upon, but when 

 they left our garden they arose high in air, and went 

 straight from sight toward every direction. So locating 



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