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Food of Young Hummingbirds.— July 2 1887 Mr F S Hr, /"^ ^ 
rits^r ,* R r h “ M »/™.5 “. °;s:: 
above the , dro °P ln g branch of an apple tree about emht feet 
SSe«hE U H ’ an f d C ,? tained tW ° eggS WhiCh — hatched 0 ;;,?;: 
tents The vo,’, ° a ’ al '° Wed me to ins Pect the nest and its con- 
7 ng W£re then n earl 7 as large* as their mother, and were 
covered with pin-feathers of a dark brown color. Their bills were perhaps 
: ,n ‘ h ^ wid < at base, and in general shape not un- 
ke the bill of a Dendroicci , but more depressed. 
Taking a station near the tree I watched the nest for two hours (from 
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.). During this period the female visited it three times 
her first coming she fed the young, and after brooding them for forty- 
ni7n,T ll ^h b r ed ab ° Ut ^ th£ “' ee (n0t ° nce leavi "S “) for about a 
minute. She then returned to the nest and fed the young again, one of 
them twice in succession. Immediately afterward she flew off out of sight 
and was absent sixteen minutes. At the end of this time she came dircct- 
y to the nest, fed each young bird once, brooded both for six minutes, 
and then again flew away not reappearing during the remaining twenty 
minutes of my stay. ° ^ 
Her manner of feeding her offspring was as follows: Alighting on the 
° §e °r w eSt ’ he ‘" taU pressed firml - v against its outer side in the man- 
° a Wood Pecker, her body erect, she would first look nervously 
around, then thrust at least three quarters of the total length of her bill 
down between the upraised open mandibles of the young bird. Next she 
wou'd shake her head violently as if disgorging something; then, with 
the., bills glued tightly together, both birds would remain, for the space 
o several seconds, perfectly immovable save for a slight, rapid, pulsatin- 
or qu.venng motion of the mother’s throat. The actual contact of the bills 
. d once four seconds, once six seconds, and twice eleven seconds, the 
time being taken with a stop watch. The male did not appear at all 
The young were perfectly silent. The mother in brooding them kept 
moving restlessly about as if she were trampling on them 
h J, he t , ClOSe and prolon = ed contact of bills, the shaking of the mother’s 
head the subsequent quivering motion of her throat, and, above all the 
fact that after sitting on the nest nearly an hour she fed the young a 
r" tlm :: V ' thoat once Ieavi "g the tree in the interim, convinced me 
that the method of feeding was by regurgitation. 
wiIh?ufkm Cter °Vu e fo ° d thUS supplied 1 COuld not ’ of course, ascertain 
r n h l T dl ?T tlng ° ne ° f the y ° l,ng ’ a P™ceeding which my 
kind-heaited host would certainly not have sanctioned ^ 
The observations above detailed were made at a distance of about ten 
yards from a pomt only a fe w feet below the level of the nest, and with 
the aid of a powerful field glass. As the day was clear and the light strong 
I could see the birds nearly as well as if I held the nest in my hand - 
William Brewster, Cambridge, Mass. ^ 
&CA *- C ^ 
/ TK ~y 
a? 
*It is remarkable that they should have attained so large a size in so short a time 
They did not, however, leave the nest until July 18, 
▼II. April, 1890. p. 
