BIRDS’ —NESTS 115 
alone should thrive, devouring, as it were, all the 
rest, is one of those freaks of Nature in which she 
would seem to discourage the, homely virtues of 
prudence and honesty. Weeds and parasites have 
the odds greatly against them, yet they wage a very 
successful war nevertheless. 
The woods hold not such another gem as the nest 
of the hummingbird. The finding of one is an 
event to date from. It is the next best thing to 
finding an eagle’s nest. I have met with but two, 
both by chance. One was placed on the horizontal 
branch of a chestnut-tree, with a solitary green leaf, 
forming a complete canopy, about an inch and a 
half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of 
the bird past my ears, as I stood under the tree, 
caused me to suspect that I was intruding upon 
some one’s privacy; and, following it with my eye, 
I soon saw the nest, which was in process of con- 
struction. Adopting my usual tactics of secreting 
myself near by, I had the satisfaction of seeing the 
tiny artist at work. It was the female, unassisted 
by her mate.. At intervals of two or three minutes 
she would appear with a small tuft of some cottony 
substance in her beak, dart a few times through and 
around the tree, and alighting quickly in the nest, 
arrange the material she had brought, using her 
breast as a model. 
The other nest I discovered in a dense forest on 
the side of a mountain. The sitting bird was dis- 
turbed as I passed beneath her. The whirring of 
her wings arrested my attention, when, after a short 
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