BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP 



Another nest I found in a similar fashion, but much 

 more easily. I was in a patch of swampy thicket of 

 low trees and bushes adjoining a meadow. A hummer 

 began to dart about, so I looked for the nest and almost 

 at once saw it, well out on a low branch of a maple. 

 There were no lichens on this green branch, though they 

 had been plastered on the nest, as usual, so that it was 

 more conspicuous than in the other case. This nest 

 also had two eggs. 



These hatch in less than two weeks, probably ten to 

 twelve days, and in two weeks more the young have 

 grown up and gone. There is easily time, then, for a 

 second brood to mature before the nights grow cool, and 

 the hummers often take advantage of this fact. One 

 day in July a little girl came running in to tell us that 

 she had found a hummer's nest in the orchard back 

 of our home. It was placed on a low branch, about 

 breast high from the ground, and contained but one 

 egg. The little mother darted about, alighting here 

 and there on slender twigs as I examined the nest. 

 When I withdrew a few yards she would quickly return 

 to her duty. It was a beautiful sight to see her enter 

 the nest. She did not perch upon the edge, but hovered 

 over it, and, with wings speeding like the wheel of a 

 dynamo, would then drop right into her little cup just 

 as a piece of thistle-down might have settled upon it, 

 lightly and airily, making one of the prettiest bird sights 

 that I have ever seen. 



Evidently it was a fine chance to photograph, not 



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