RUBYTHROAT i9S 



reaches the spot, seems to drop upon the nest from nowhere 

 like a holt out of the sky. 



The humming bird lays only two eggs. They are white 

 and scarcely larger than a small navy bean. The bird sits 

 usually fourteen to fifteen days. When the young are 

 hatched, they are as helpless looking little creatures as 

 one could imagine. They are scarcely as large as a tumble- 

 bug and as naked as a young mouse. They are so weak and 

 frail that they can scarcely raise their heads for food. 

 The mother is exceedingly careful of them, hovering them 

 solicitously for two or three days. She feeds them by 

 sticking her bill down their throats. When the young are 

 half grown she begins feeding them freshly caught insects. 

 Within sixteen days they are ready to leave the nest and 

 fly. Think of it, a perfectly naked bird growing to 

 maturity, putting on the brilliant plumage of a humming 

 bird, and becoming ready to leave the nest and meet the 

 cares and dangers of the big broad world all within sixteen 

 days ! Within three or four days the mother lays two more 

 eggs. During this time the young humming birds have 

 been taught to find the sweetest flowers and to catch the 

 choicest insects, and then they are left to shift for them- 

 selves. They quickly leave the vicinity of the nest, and 

 usually all of the young humming birds in the neighbor- 

 hood collect together, either for the fun of racing with 

 each other or because they feel more secure because of 

 their numbers. I have seen in our yard as many as eight 

 or ten young humming birds in one flock dashing after 

 one another over the lawn and into the rose bushes and 

 columbines till tired out, and then they would finally set- 

 tle to rest on the branches of a tree. 



The young, and for that matter the mother bird, do not 



