118 A WIDOW AND TWINS. 
where my eyes were perhaps fifteen feet from 
the nest, and a foot or two above its level. 
At the end of about twenty minutes, the 
mother, who meantime had made two visits 
to the tree, flew into place, and brooded for 
seventeen minutes. Then she disappeared 
again, and on her return, after numberless 
pretty feints and sidelong approaches, 
alighted on the wall of the nest, and fed 
both little ones. The operation, though still 
sufficiently reckless, looked less like infanti- 
cide than before, —a fact due, as I suppose, 
to my more elevated position, from which 
the nestlings’ throats were better seen. 
After this she brooded for another seventeen 
minutes. On the present occasion, as well 
as on many others, it was noticeable that, 
while sitting upon the young, she kept up 
an almost incessant motion, as if seeking to 
warm them, or perhaps to develop their 
muscles by a kind of massage treatment. 
A measure of such hitchings and fidgetings 
might have meant nothing more than an 
attempt to secure for herself a comfortable 
seat; but when they were persisted in for 
fifteen minutes together, it was difficult not 
to believe that she had some different end in 
