46 STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 



There were two of them in the nest, when it 

 was discovered. Humming birds never lay but 

 two eggs at a time, I believe. The nest was 

 found in a shed, near the house. The young 

 birds were placed in a cage at the chamber 

 window, and the father and mother used to 

 come and bring food for the little ones every 

 hour in the day. By and by, the little birds 

 got so tame that they would alight on the 

 gentleman's hand, when he let them out of the 

 cage and called them. In this manner they 

 lived with their master six months. But one 

 night the rats found their way into the cage, 

 and they soon made an end of the pretty 

 humming birds. 



A gentleman of veracity who recently col- 

 lected a number of different specimens of the 

 humming bird in Mexico, tells an interesting 

 story about the manner in which birds, be- 

 longing to one of the smallest of this family, 

 were in the habit of catching the flies that had 

 got entangled in a spider's web. " The house 

 I resided in for several weeks," he says, " was 

 only a story high, enclosing, like most of the 

 Spanish houses, a small garden in the centre, 

 the roof projecting some six or seven feet from 

 the walls, covering a walk all round, and hav- 

 ing a small space only between the tiles and 



