Two Baby Hummers 8i 



it repeated each day when I brought them the food. I gave it to them only 

 once a day, fearing to interfere too much, so that they remembered from the 

 day before. This I thought most remarkable, considering that they were so 

 young. 



Their bills have grown longer, and I noticed, too, they did not protrude 

 the tongue until the day before the first one flew; then they regularly licked 

 the syrup from my finger with the tiny, hair-like tongue. 



Today, the 27th, they are so high in the tree I cannot see them, only hear 

 them often. This is reassuring, though I cannot be called even a foster-mother; 

 nevertheless, I would not take anything for the confidence already shown, 

 and I think of Longfellow's poem: 



"He giveth you your wings to fly, 

 And breathe a purer air on high, 

 And careth for you everywhere, 

 Who for yourselves so little care!" 



Redwing 



By ELSIE ELOUISE WHEELER, Meriden, N. H. 



NOT the shy little Indian maiden that kept the prairie camp-fires bright 

 for an absent lover, but a brilliant little Warbler, is the Redwing of 

 my story. 



One beautiful summer morning, I received a telephone message from a 

 friend that a bird of bright tints was fluttering at that moment, quite unable 

 to fly, in a rose-bush beneath her window. Would I come down and ascertain 

 the nature of its injury and see that it was cared for? "At any minute, "she 

 prompted, "the Grimalkin of the Green Eyes may prowl around the hotel 

 corner." Needless to say, I went, though the sun-splashed distance stretched 

 half a mile, and my waiting housework voiced remonstrance. 



The bird proved to be a full-grown male Redstart, and I easily caught 

 him and carried him home. One wing drooped uselessly, but no bones seemed 

 to be broken, and I concluded that the bird had flown so violently against some 

 obstruction as to bruise and lame the breast muscles, rendering flight impossible 

 for the time. From the vivid orange flame of his wing markings, I named 

 him 'Redwing.' I placed him in an empty bird-cage and offered him refresh- 

 ments. I had watched Redstarts in the woods, so I knew what kind of food 

 my guest would relish. I brought my fly-killer and sought the sunny side of 

 the shed. 



Thirty house-flies were my first offering, and these were greedily swallowed. 

 For all his stiffened muscles. Redwing was the swiftest bird in motion I ever 

 saw. He would sit on his cage-perch and swing his head downward to pick up 

 the flies, or drop to the bottom of the cage, snatch a fly in his bill and swallow it 



