126 MY LADY IN GREEN. 



on those grub-like bodies ? They were at this 

 time four and five days old; for though they 

 appeared like twins, I learned from previous 

 watchers that there was a day's difference be- 

 tween them. 



After I had looked and wondered, and re- 

 turned to my seat behind the window-blinds to 

 watch, the mother came to feed. It would be 

 pleasant to imagine that the food brought by 

 that dainty dame, and administered to her be- 

 loved brood, consisted of the nectar of flowers, 

 drawn from the sweet peas that filled the gar- 

 den with beauty and perfume, the gay flaunting 

 scarlet beans over the way, or the golden drops 

 of the jewel-weed modestly hiding under their 

 broad leaves, in the hollow down by the bridge. 

 But Science, in her relentless substitution of 

 fact for fancy, does not allow us this agreeable 

 delusion. Something far more substantial, not 

 to say gross, we are informed, is required to build 

 up the muscle and bone of the atoms in the nest. 

 Meat is what they must have, and meat it was, 

 in the shape of tiny spiders and perhaps other 

 minute creatures, that mamma was seeking when 

 she hovered under the maple boughs, now and 

 then touching a twig or the underside of a leaf. 

 Indeed, one might occasionally see her pick off 

 her spider as deftly as one would pick a peach. 



Hummingbird feeding has been graphically 



