178 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 



it wakes, and put out its little black tongue be- 

 yond the beak. Now, the tongue and the beak 

 together make a very long spoon or tube which is 

 dipped into flower-cups. You wonder, while you 

 see the long tongue, what the bird does with it 

 when her mouth is shut. Sure, she curls it up 

 around the back of the skull when she is n't using 

 it. You have seen the tongue of some of the 

 moths curl up under the chin like a watch-spring 

 when they are not at their meals. 



It would take pretty good eyes to see that the 

 tongue of the hummer is a double-barreled tube, 

 but such it really is. Should you offer honey to 

 the bird, she could not take it. It would be too 

 thick. Nectar is not honey. It is thin, like 

 water, but very sweet. 



Once we found a boy with a little humming- 

 bird in his hand. He refused to tell us where he 

 obtained it, and so we could not give it back to its 

 mother. We mixed honey and milk together, 

 and fed it with a little eye-dropper, drop by drop. 

 Next day we placed it in the nest of a mother 

 hummer, and she adopted it, and brought it up 

 very tenderly, as if it were her own. 



Humming-birds seem to be loved by the other 

 birds in our grounds. They are not disturbed 

 nor driven away. They nest with us every year, 



