560 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



wall. Upon this wall are stuck quantities of a light grey lichen 

 which is found on old fences and trees, so that the external 

 appearance of the nest is rendered very similar to that of the 

 branch on which it is placed. The lining is composed of the 

 fine hairs which clothe the stalks of mullein and ferns and other 

 pubescent plants, and forms a thick, soft bed on which repose the 

 two minute pearly eggs. 



The nest is not merely placed upon the branch, because in 

 that case it would present a decided outline, and be compara- 

 tively easy of recognition. On the contrary, the base of the 

 nest is partly continued round the branch, so that the whole fabric 

 rises gradually from the bough, as if it were a natural excre- 

 scence. 



When the young are hatched they are fed by thrusting their 

 beaks into the opened mouths of their parents, and extracting 

 the supply of liquid sweets which have been collected from the 

 flowers. 



There is another species of this group that builds a very 

 pretty branch-nest. This is the Vervain Humming Bird {Melli- 

 sv/ja minima), one of the minutest of the feathered race. From 

 the point of its beak to the end of its tail it only measures two 

 inches and three-quarters, so that when stripped of its feathers 

 it seems more like an insect than a bird. 



Its popular name is derived from its fondness for the West 

 Indian vervain (Stachyarphda] a very common weed in neglected 

 pastures, with a slender stem, a blue flower, and averaging a 

 foot in height. Wherever the vervain is plentiful, the Hum- 

 ming Bird is sure to be found, darting here and there, now 

 poising itself before a flower, and probing its recesses with the 

 long, slender tongue, and now shooting for hundreds of feet into 

 the air, and tlieu descending diagonally, as if shot from a gun, 

 towards the flower from which it started, and balancing itself 

 before its blue petals as if it had not moved. 



The nest of this bird is proportionately small, and is beauti- 

 fully made of vegetable fibres, such as the silk-cotton of the 

 bombax, and, when the eggs are laid, is only just large enough to 

 contain them and to retain the body of the mother bird. When, 

 however, the young are hatched, the parents add to the walls of 

 the nest, which, by degrees, alters its shape completely. At first 



