168 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



at a time, as in other nestlings, but the sheaths 

 which surround the growing feathers remain until 

 they are an inch or more in length; then one day, 

 in the space of only an hour or so, the overlapping 

 armour of bluish tiles bursts and the plumage 

 assumes a normal appearance. 



The little black-and-white downy and the flicker 

 are the two woodpeckers which make the Park 

 their home. Both nest in hollows bored out by 

 their strong beaks, but although full of splinters 

 and sawdust, such a habitation is far superior to 

 the sooty chimneys in which the young chimney 

 swifts break from their snow-white eggs and 

 twitter for food. How impatiently they must look 

 up at the blue sky, and one would think that they 

 must long for the time when they can spread their 

 sickle-shaped wings and dash about from dawn 

 to dark! Is it not wonderful that one of them 

 should live to grow up when we think of the frag- 

 ile little cup which is their home? — a mosaic of 

 delicate twigs held together only by the sticky 

 saliva of the parent birds. 



A relation of theirs — though we should never 

 guess it — is sitting upon her tiny air castle high 

 up in an apple tree not far aw T ay, — a ruby-throated 

 hummingbird. If we take a peep into the nest 

 when the young hummingbirds are only partly 

 grown, we shall see that their bills are broad and 

 stubby, like those of the swifts. Their home, how- 

 ever, is indeed a different affair, — a pinch of 



