110 THE " BIRD OF THE MUSICAL WING." 



lost it then, and the luck of finding it so easily 

 could not fall to me twice, I rushed to the 

 house to share my enthusiasm with a sympa- 

 thizer. 



My lady ruby-throat was a canny bird ; . she 

 had selected her position with judgment. The 

 silver poplar of her choice was covered with 

 knobs so exactly copied by the nest that no 

 one would have suspected it of being anything 

 different. It was on a dead branch, so that 

 foliage could not trouble her, while leafy twigs 

 grew near enough for protection. No large 

 limb afforded rest for a human foe, and it was 

 at the neck-breaking height of twenty feet from 

 the ground. Neck-breaking indeed I found it, 

 after a trial of twenty minutes' duration, which, 

 judging from my sensations, might have been 

 a century. 



But whether my head ever recovered its nat- 

 ural pose or not, I was happy ; for I saw the 

 hummingbird shaping her snug domicile to her 

 tidy form, turning around and around in it, 

 pressing with breast and bend of the wing, as I 

 was certain, from the similarity of her attitude 

 and motions to those of a robin I had closely 

 watched at the same work. During the time 

 I watched her she made ten trips between the 

 poplar and the vine, and at every visit worked 

 at shaping the nest and adjusting the outside 



