it is like any humming-bird's nest one of the 

 most exquisite of all natural objefts. 



In the course of ten days, in place of one of the 

 'eggs appeared a small and peculiarly homely objedt 

 which resembled a spider as much as anything. 

 Two days later the other egg was hatched. At 

 this stage the bills of the young birds were very 

 short, but day by day they lengthened and grew 

 more needlelike. At length one bird opened its 

 minute and shining black eyes for the first time. 

 The other fell from the nest on the following day, 

 before its eyes were opened, so that all it had 

 known of life was the consciousness of hunger. 



The female fed her young with much less fre- 

 quency than do other birds. When so engaged 

 she perched upon the rim of the nest and pumped 

 the food into them after the manner of her kind. 

 As she flew to and fro, she appeared to move 

 always at the same speed, as if her wings were 

 keyed to a definite rate of vibration and could not 

 vary. Gradually the young bird emerged from its 

 gruesome infancy, and day by day became more 

 sylphlike. Heavy winds prevailed, but the dimin- 

 utive cradle remained unharmed, though branches 

 were everywhere blown from the trees. So was 



29 



