120 A WIDOW AND TWINS. 
tree, made the circuit of her favorite perches, 
dressed her plumage, darted away again, 
and again returned, till I was almost driven 
to get down, for her relief. At last she fed 
the nestlings, who by this time must have 
been all but starved, as indeed they seemed 
to be. “The tips of their bills do come 
clean up to the base of the mother’s mandi- 
bles.” So I wrote in my journal; for it is 
the first duty of a naturalist to verify his 
own observations. 
On the 10th we again brought out the 
ladder. Though at least eleven days old, 
the tiny birds—the “widow’s mites,” as 
my facetious neighbor called them — were 
still far from filling the cup. While I stood 
over it, one of them uttered some pathetic 
little cries that really went tomy heart. His 
bill, perceptibly longer than on the 5th, was 
sticking just above the border of the nest. 
I touched it at the tip, but he did not stir. 
Craning my neck, I could see his open eye. 
Poor, helpless things! Yet within three 
months they would be flying to Central 
America, or some more distant clime. How 
little they knew what was before them! As 
little as I know what is before me. 
