24 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



The young bird, fluttering his wings came as close to his mother 

 as the wire would allow. Then the old bird poked her long bill 

 into the little fellow's widely opened one and shook him vigor- 

 ously. After repeating this performance several times she dart- 

 ed away and the baby seemed thoroughly satisfied. 



But is was growing dark and the nights were chilly so I re- 

 moved the cage into the house, wrapped a piece of flannel about 

 it and said good-night to my little charge. Next morning I 

 found him shivering and very weak, in fact it seemed that he 

 was about to die. However the sunlight and his mother's food 

 soon revived him. Yes, we found her perched on the telephone 

 wire anxiously awaiting the arrival of her child. 



The task of identifying the youngster now confronted me. 

 At the museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, we saw 

 mounted over three hundred species of hummingbirds ranging 

 in size from an inch to six inches and the state of California it- 

 self contains no mean number. But after a long process of elim- 

 ination I came to the conclusion that this must be the Anna 

 Hummingbird (Calypte anna) a plain species averaging about 

 three and one half inches in length. From that time on my new 

 pet's name was "Anna". I judged him to be about three weeks 

 old for he showed signs of restlessness and seemed eager to try 

 his wings. Deciding that these members might need exercise 

 I removed him from the cage to the lawn swing to allow him to 

 try his aerial powers. Although these proved to be quite weak 

 Anna was no coward about trying and he attempted several short 

 flights. 



During the course of the day the mother made many trips to 

 the cage, however, she was always nervous and always on the 

 offensive. Many other hummers hung over the Bougainvillea, 

 which seemed to be a favorite food vine, but she allowed these 

 intruders no peace. In fact she had more tolerance for the 

 human race than for others of her kind for she allowed us to 

 approach her baby without protest whereas had any bird gone 

 near the cage I am sure that he would have regretted it. In order 

 to test her I seated myself on the lawn near the cage with little 

 Anna in my hand wondering if his mother would come and feed 

 him. After an hour and a half of almost motionless waiting 

 during which mother hummer flew about anxiously I felt her 

 feet clasping my finger. It was a wonderful sensation to feel the 

 grip of those tiny toes and when I slowly turned my head and out 

 of the corner of my eye saw her feeding her eager little one my 

 joy was supreme. Time after time I held the baby in my hand 

 and time after time she fed it there. On the fifth day she showed 

 little or no fear coming promptly to my hand but starting ner- 

 vously at the click of the camera. 



During this time the baby's wings had been growing stronger 

 and on the seventh day he took flight from my hand to a near by 

 fig tree, where mounting higher and higher he finally reached 



