Familiar Studies of Wild Birds 



seek food, though she is absent but a few sec- 

 onds at a time. This habit may be due to 

 the bird's restlessly active nature. Because of 

 the small size of the eggs, also, she can leave 

 them exposed for only short intervals or they 

 would become chilled. Toward the end of 

 the incubation period, the eggs turn from their 

 original translucent whiteness to a dark shade, 

 the air sac now filling one third of the space. 

 After trying for fifteen days to imagine the 

 appearance of the bird that would come out of 

 so small an egg, I was considerably surprised, 

 to say the least, when a newly hatched hummer 

 was finally disclosed to view. The young 

 humming bird is black with a few yellow hairs 

 sticking up from the center of its back. Its 

 eyes, of course, are closed, and its bill instead 

 of being long and slender like the adults', is 

 of the short and stubby shape of a sparrow's. 

 The respiration is very rapid, perhaps three 

 hundred to the minute. The development of 



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