io American Birds 



the reason. One youngster sat on the nest edge, stretched 

 his wings, combed his tail, lengthened his neck, and 

 preened the feathers of his breast. Then he tried his 

 wings. They began slowly, as if getting up steam. He 

 made them buzz till they fairly lifted him off his feet; 

 he had to hang on to keep from going: he could fly, but 

 the time was not ripe. A little gnat buzzed slowly past 

 within two inches of his eyes. The nestling instinctively 

 stabbed at the insect, but fell short. Each bantling took 

 turns at practising on the edge of the nest, till they had 

 mastered the art of balancing and rising in the air. 



I have never known exactly what to think of the male 

 rufous. I never saw such an enthusiastic lover during the 

 days of courtship and the beginning of house building. 

 He reminded me of a diminutive whirlwind that took 

 everything by storm. He simply ran crazy-mad in love. 

 As soon as the cottony cup was finished and the mother had 

 cradled her twin white eggs the father disappeared. He 

 merely dropped out of existence, as Bradford Torrey says 

 of his ruby-throat, leaving a widow with the twins on her 

 hands. 



This always seems to be the case, for at the differ- 

 ent nests where I have watched, I never but once saw the 

 male hummer near the nest after the children were born. 

 I was lying in the shade of the bushes a few feet from the 

 nest one afternoon. For two whole days I had been watch- 

 ing and photographing and no other hummer had been 

 near. Suddenly a male darted up the canon and lit on a 

 dead twig opposite the nest. He hadn't settled before 

 the mother hurtled at him. I jumped up to watch. They 

 shot up and down the hillside like winged bullets, through 



