The Anna Hummer 
Incubation with the 
Anna Hummer lasts 
seventeen days, a good 
deal longer than is cus¬ 
tomary with our other 
Hummers. Bowles has 
noticed 1 that the albu¬ 
men of Anna’s egg is 
thick and gummy in 
comparison with that 
of other species, and we 
surmise that this is the 
concomitant condition 
of some special cold- 
resisting property, as in 
the case of ducks’ eggs. 
The infants, when they 
do come, look to our 
Brobdignagian eyes 
more like baby bumble¬ 
bees than baby birds. 
They are shamelessly 
naked, too, and it is 
small wonder that their 
young mother, after 
having braced herself 
with copious drafts of 
mead, returns to assas¬ 
sinate her changeling 
brood. At least, so it 
would appear—but per¬ 
haps we are mistaken, for 
Finley says 2 of another 
species nowise different 
in this respect: “After she [the mother Hummer] had spread her tail like 
a flicker to brace herself, she craned her neck and drew her dagger-like bill 
straight up above the nest. She plunged it down the youngster’s throat to 
the hilt, and started a series of gestures that seemed to puncture him to 
the toes. Then she stabbed the other twin till it made me shudder. 
She was only giving them a dinner after the usual hummingbird method 
of regurgitation, but it looked to me like the murder of the infants.” 
A SWEET BUD 
THIS IS A BLACK-CHINNED HUMMER-NOT AN ANNA 
Photo by Donald R. Dickey 
1 Op. cit., p. 127. 
2 The Condor, Vol. VII., May-June, 1905, p. 60. 
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