DEC 7 1923 
Vol. 13, No. 1. LOS ANGELES JUNE, 1900. 
Our Smallest Friends, The 
Hummers. 
BY ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH CRINNELL. 
have found a good deal of entertainment 
when Mrs. Anna Hummer nests low. It 
is emphatically “ Mrs. Hummer,” for her 
brilliant lord is oft to the arroyos or blos¬ 
soming fields as soon as the real cares of a 
family are upon him. Thus is the little 
wife left to the building of the fragile nest, 
the provisioning of the larder, and the rear¬ 
ing of posterity. She is capable, and spends no time, that we 
have observed, in repining at her limited sphere. Ever faithful, 
fearless, untiring, she meets the demands of her annual twins, 
even nesting twice, if there be time, before the summer mid¬ 
heat. She begins about Christmas, and we have seen her in¬ 
cubating as late as June. Once she was caught repairing an 
old nest in August, but she gave it up in a few days. We 
have protected this tiny bird in many a rain when, to our im¬ 
agination, she and her young were in imminent danger of 
drowning. She accepts our intervention in the matter of para¬ 
sols and gingham aprons and things, for cover, with a trustful 
look, and takes no exceptions. She is the most fearless of all 
our birds, and we have tamed her at nesting time into com¬ 
plete trust. One hardly dares to close one’s fingers over the 
frail being, lest in spite of tenderness of touch she be crushed. 
We have photographed her and her young in every desired at¬ 
titude : on the wing, in the act of feeding, or poised above the 
nest. 
It takes about two weeks so to tame any of the birds that we 
can handle them at will, but when accomplished it gives one a 
Copyright. 1900 by Land of Sunshine Pub. Co. 
