C. Naether—Amateur Photographer meets a Humming Bird Family 327


only to find that one tiny young had hatched. The remaining egg was

not even pipped, its dark purplish colour indicating that it was fertile.

The youngster resembled an ugly worm rather than a young bird.

Not wishing to delay the hatching procedure, I left the gardens without

taking any pictures. The following Saturday night, a slow drizzle

developed into an all-night downpour which made me fear for the safety

of the flimsy nest stuck precariously on the small camellia branch.

When on the next day I looked into the nest, I found that the rain

had almost soaked it off its foundation. One youngster w T as clinging

to the heavily listing nest ; the other I finally discovered on the wet

ground. He was numb with cold and showed but faint signs of life.

I righted the nest and propped it up as best I could. It had lost its

former shape entirely and was nothing more than a wet mass of this

and that. I placed the half-dead youngster beside his twin brother, or

sister, who was breathing very rapidly. Authorities estimate that the

Humming Bird’s blood is almost always at fever heat temperature, which

is variously estimated at from 111 to 114 degrees of Fahrenheit. Quickly

I placed my camera in position and withdrew to my usual hiding-

place. Soon Lady H. B. came. Carefully she inspected me and my

paraphernalia before attending to the wants of her little family. She

made a valiant attempt to feed the young bird that had fallen to

the ground, gently poking him with her long bill—quite rightly she

thought him in dire need of nourishment. But he only moved sluggishly

in response to the motherly caress, the parent thereupon proceeding

to feed the other youngster. Carefully she inserted her beak into his

to disgorge nectar for a few moments ; then she withdrew it just as

carefully. Naturally, I wanted a picture of the feeding operation. At

first she disappointed me a number of times by turning her back on the

camera and me as if to say, “ This is strictly a private, a family affair,

if you please ! ” After an hour’s waiting—she usually fed the young four

times an hour—she condescended to pose in full side view and was

disturbed neither by the string as I pulled it nor by the click of the

shutter. But before I go further, it is necessary to record an interesting

fact. Approximately five minutes after I had returned the half-dead

young Humming Bird to the nest, he was breathing as rapidly as

his mate. What marvellous powers of recuperation in such a tiny



