4 American Birds 



that had been placed in a wild blackberry brier just 

 above the creek. The green fibres and the lichens that 

 shingled the outside of the tiny cup blended exactly with 

 the green leaves and stems of the vines. The cotton lining 

 of the nest and the two eggs looked precisely like the 

 clusters of white blossoms surrounding. One might have 

 searched all over the vine a dozen times and yet not have 

 discovered the nest. 



Many a spider's suspension-bridge the hummingbird 

 had torn away, and many a mouthful of cotton from the 

 balms and down from the thistles, she collected. As I 

 watched her, it looked to me as if a bill for probing flowers 

 was not suitable for weaving nests. Maybe it would have 

 been more convenient at times if it had been shorter. But 

 she wove in the webs and fibres. She whirred round and 

 round and shaped the side of her cup as a potter moulds 

 his masterpiece. Then she thatched the outside with ir- 

 regular bits of lichen. 



Another pair of hummers took up a homestead on the 

 hillside. The bank had been cut down to build a wood 

 road, but the place had been abandoned a generation ago. 

 The hummer saddled her tiny cup on the lowest branch of 

 a small fir at the top of the bank. It looked as if she had 

 picked out a spot to please the photographer. 



When the weather was warm, the mother didn't brood 

 long at a time. It often looked to me as if it was only 

 child's play at setting. Five minutes was such a long, 

 wearisome spell that she just had to take a turn about the 

 garden. I often thought the tiny eggs would chill through 

 before she returned, and I began to lose hope in her rest- 

 less, shiftless manner. But she knew better. 



