THE OOLOGIST. 



217 



fresh, and the prettiest and most deli- 

 •cately colored nest it has ever been my 

 lot to see. The architecture was par- 

 ticularly jflne, and the body, instead of 

 being made of the usual brown vegeta- 

 ble down, was almost of a lemon-yel- 

 low color, and perhaps collected from 

 the under side of sycamore leaves. 

 Then, to add to the beauty of the scene, 

 the tree was one that was particularly 

 corky. What a beautiful view this 

 would have made for Mr. Cheney's 

 ■camera! I suppose every naturalist 

 •dreams of finding. My turn came this 

 night (the 19th); I dreamed of finding a 

 nest back in Indiana. Next morning I 

 was surprised that my dream was part- 

 ly true. I found my fourth nest within 

 a week. Sucli as this is almost enough 

 to make an amateur dream. This nest 

 was in a small white oak, 20 feet up, 

 and contained two nearly hatched eggs. 

 The female stayed in sight while col- 

 lecting. 



My next find was on the 37th. While 

 out hunting, I found a deserted nest, 

 high lip in a large black oak, and with- 

 out anything to assist me. I took a 

 friend out to see if be could find it; 

 showed him the tree, and finally the 

 limb it was on before he could see it. 



This, I concluded, was the last of the 

 season, though, on the 23rd of July, I 

 collected a set of two fresh eggs, half 

 way down the Mt. (500 feet). While 

 walking to town I saw this bird busily 

 engaged about a small black hickory, 

 my curiosity was aroused, to know 

 what she could be doing there. She 

 had some brown object in her bill, and 

 I w^as determined to see what slie did 

 with it. Presently, she surprised me 

 by alighting on her nest in that same 

 tree, and not ten feet over my head. 

 After remaining quiet a minute or so, 

 moving her head from side to side as if 

 M^atching me, she proceeded to place 

 the brown object inside the nest, then 

 "worked" it awhile and flew away. I 

 climbed the tree first to see how large 



the birds were, and was again surjjrised 

 to see two white eggs. 1 gave her a 

 day or two to finish her nest and then 

 took the whole. The nest was placed 

 on a little, crooked .branch of a limb 

 that hung vertical for several feet, and 

 was in half an inch of main limb. This 

 female also stayed close by to see her 

 nest taken, and I. once saw the male 

 She was the second gHummer I ever 

 saw with anything in her bill. The 

 other was carrying a long mass of 

 spider webs, and how she flew so swift- 

 ly without becomingfientangled, was a 

 mystery. 



I am told, on good authority, that a 

 Hummer once built in a honeysuckle in 

 a man's yard, but I think the nest was 

 some other kind, and as the Hummers 

 were seen there so often, they were 

 mistaken for the owners. But few who 

 have not seen these nests can have any 

 idea of what a Hummingbird's nest is 

 like. I used to hunt for them in honey- 

 suckles. 



It is probably true that the young are 

 fed by regurgitation, and by careful studj' 

 we may know inji^another year. No 

 Hummingbird lays more than two eggs 

 in one nest, and all are white. The 

 eggs are!.the smallest of all, and yet one 

 egg is one-sixth as large as the bird's 

 body. TheJeggs, like those of a few 

 other birds" that only lay in pairs, are 

 "male and -female," that is, each set 

 contains an embryo male and female. 

 (In , the case of the Carrion Crow, the 

 eggs are of dift'erent size, shape and 

 markings.) Two sets of young are 

 often reared. 



In heading this article as I have, I do 

 not mean to infer that Ark. is a fairy 

 land, nor^this mountain, but that a pai'- 

 ticular place on the mountain is just 

 such a place as is often ascribed to 

 those mythical beings, the fairies. On 

 entering it, a strangeness takes possess- 

 ion of one, that makes him feel as if 

 there is a little truth in fairy tales after 

 all. It is the head of a Mt. stream, 

 walled in by gray cheeked rocks. 



