A Widow and Tivins. 
771 
1891.] 
from the twig, ancl circled about him so 
closely as almost or quite to touch him 
with her wings. On completing the cir¬ 
cle she dropped upon the perch at his 
side, but immediately rose again, and 
again flew round him. It was a beau¬ 
tiful act,—beautiful beyond the power 
of any words of mine to set forth; an 
expression of maternal ecstasy, I could 
not doubt, answering to the rapturous 
caresses and endearments in which mo¬ 
thers of human infants are so frequently 
seen indulging. Three days afterward, 
to my delight, I saw it repeated in every 
particular, as if to confirm my opinion 
of its significance. The sight repaid all 
my watchings thrice over, and even now 
I feel my heart growing warm at the re¬ 
collection of it. Strange thoughtlessness, 
is it not, which allows mothers capable 
of such passionate devotion, tiny, de¬ 
fenseless things, to be slaughtered by 
the million for the enhancement of wo¬ 
man’s charms! 
At this point we suddenly became 
aware that for at least a day or two the 
old bird had probably been feeding her 
offspring in two ways, — sometimes by 
regurgitation, and sometimes by a sim¬ 
ple transfer from beak to beak. The 
manner of our discovery was somewhat 
laughable. The mother perched beside 
one of the young birds, put her bill into 
his, and then apparently fell off the limb 
head first. We thought she had not 
finished, and looked to see her return ; 
but she flew away, and after a while 
the truth dawned upon us. Thereafter, 
unless our observation was at fault, she 
used whichever method happened to suit 
her convenience. If she found a choice 
collection of spiders, 1 for instance, she 
brought them in her throat (as cedar- 
birds carry cherries), to save trips; if 
she had only one or two, she retained 
them between her mandibles. It will be 
1 Mr. E. H. Earaes reports (in The Auk, 
vol. vii. p. 287) that, on dissecting a hum¬ 
ming-bird, about two days old, he found sixteen 
understood, I suppose, that we did not 
see the food in its passage from one bird 
to the other, — human eyesight would 
hardly be equal to work of such nicety ; 
but the two bills were put together so 
frequently and in so pronounced a man¬ 
ner as to leave us in no practical uncer¬ 
tainty about what was going on. Nei¬ 
ther had I any doubt that the change 
was connected in some way with the 
increasing age of the fledgelings ; yet it 
is to be said that the two methods con¬ 
tinued to be used interchangeably to the 
end, and on the 28th, when Number 
Two had been out of the nest for seven 
days, the mother thrust her bill down his 
throat and repeated the operation, just 
as she had done three weeks before. 
For at least two days longer, as I be¬ 
lieve, the faithful creature continued her 
loving ministrations, although I failed 
to detect her in the act. Then, on the 
1st of August, as I sat on the piazza, I 
saw her for the last time. The honey¬ 
suckle vine had served her well, and still 
bore half a dozen scattered blossoms, as 
if for her especial benefit. She hovered 
before them, one by one, and in another 
instant was gone. May the Fates be kind 
to her, and to her children after her, to 
the latest generation ! Our intercourse 
had lasted for eight weeks, — wanting 
one day, — and it was fitting that it 
should end where it had begun, at the 
sign of the honeysuckle. 
The absence of the father bird for all 
this time, though I have mentioned it 
but casually, was of course a subject of 
continual remark. How was it to be ex¬ 
plained ? My own opinion is, sorry as 
I am to have reached it, that such ab¬ 
sence or desertion — by whatever name 
it may be called — is the general habit 
of the male rubythroat. Upon this 
point I shall have some things to say 
in a subsequent paper. 
Bradford Torrey. 
young spiders in its throat, and a pultaceous 
mass of the same in its stomach. 
