The Black-chinned Hummer 
automatic action. Be 
sure that such species 
as are wont to invade 
cactus plants, whether 
to nest or to rifle sweets, 
are not just taking 
chances with the 
thorns. If the foliage 
threatens to interfere 
with wing-action, that is 
instantly suppressed, 
and the bird crawls 
about like a bee, or uses 
its wings as a pair of 
crutches. Once, a hum¬ 
mer, finding itself 
entrapped in a porch by 
Taken in the Ojai 
Taken near 
Santa Barbara 
Photo by 
the Author 
NEST AND EGGS OF BLACK-CHINNED 
HUMMER 
Photo by Dickey 
BLACK-CHINNED HUMMER AND YOUNG 
a wall of “chicken-wire” netting with meshes 
only an inch and a half in diameter, first 
passed slowly before the face of the screen, 
searching whether there might be any excep¬ 
tion in his favor. Finding none, he 
made up his mind and darted through. 
So swiftly was the passage effected that 
the eye could detect no change in the 
position of the bird’s wings. Only the 
ear noted an infinitesimal pause in 
their rhythm. Yet to accomplish this, 
the bird had been obliged to suspend 
the propeller motion of its wings, to 
furl them, to halve their normal 
spread, and to resume again 
upon the other side of the screen. 
No insect could have done this, 
and no other bird would have 
attempted it without “losing 
its head.” 
Vibrated, as they are, with 
a rapidity which no lens 'can 
