Humming-birds of Guatemala. 265 



(one not nearly so liable to oscillation by the wind), the bird had 

 found that a greater depth was not necessary to keep the eggs 

 from falling out. Had she placed her nest on a slender twig, 

 such a one as seems to be the usual position chosen, the case 

 might have been different.- The third nest had young. It was 

 placed in the upper shoots of a Dahlia which grew at the further 

 end of the court-yard of the house. The hen bird seemed to have 

 the entire duty of rearing the young, as I never once saw the 

 male near the place ; in fact, I never saw a male T. henicura 

 inside the court-yard at all. When the hen was sitting she 

 would sometimes allow me to go quite close to her, and even 

 hold the branch still when it was swayed to and fro by the wind, 

 without evincing the slightest alarm. But it was only when a 

 hot sun was shining that she would allow me to do this ; when 

 it was dull or raining, four or five yards was the nearest I could 

 approach. Frequently when I had disturbed her I would sit 

 down close at hand and wait for her retui'n, and I always 

 noticed that, after flying past once or twice overhead, she 

 would bring a small piece of lichen, which, after she had settled 

 herself comfortably in her nest, she would attach to the outside. 

 All this w^as done with such a confident and fearless air, that 

 she seemed to intimate, " I left my nest purely to search for this 

 piece of lichen, and not because I was afraid of you." When 

 sitting upon her nest the whole cavity was quite filled by her 

 puffed-out feathers, the vdngs, with the exception of their tips, 

 being entirely concealed by the feathers of the back. When the 

 young were first hatched, they looked little, black, shapeless 

 things with long necks and hardly any beak. They soon, however, 

 grew, and entirely filled the nest. I never saw the old bird sitting 

 after the young had emerged from the eggs ; she seemed to leave 

 them alike in sun and rain. When feeding them, she would 

 stand on the edge of the nest with her body very upright. The 

 first of these young ones flew on October 15. It was standing 

 on the side of the nest as I happened to approach, when it 

 immediately flew off, but fell among the flowers below. I placed 

 it again in the nest, but a moment after it was off again, nothing 

 daunted by its first failure, — this second time with better 

 success, for it flew over a wall close by and settled on a tree on 



