Humming-birds of Guatemala . 
265 
(one not nearly so liable to oscillation by the wind), the bird had 
found that a greater depth was not necessary to keep the eggs 
from falling out. Had she placed her nest on a slender twig, 
such a one as seems to be the usual position chosen, the case 
might have been different. The third nest had young. It was 
placed in the upper shoots of a Dahlia which grew at the further 
end of the court-yard of the house. The hen bird seemed to have 
the entire duty of rearing the young, as I never once saw the 
male near the place; in fact, I never saw a male T. henicura 
inside the court-yard at all. When the hen was sitting she 
would sometimes allow me to go quite close to her, and even 
hold the branch still when it was swayed to and fro by the wind, 
without evincing the slightest alarm. But it was only when a 
hot sun was shining that she would allow me to do this; when 
it was dull or raining, four or five yards was the nearest I could 
approach. Frequently when I had disturbed her I would sit 
down close at hand and wait for her return, and I always 
noticed that, after flying past once or twice overhead, she 
would bring a small piece of lichen, which, after she had settled 
herself comfortably in her nest, she would attach to the outside. 
All this was done with such a confident and fearless air, that 
she seemed to intimate, “ I left my nest purely to search for this 
piece of lichen, and not because I was afraid of you.” TV hen 
sitting upon her nest the whole cavity was quite filled by her 
puffed-out feathers, the wings, with the exception of their tips, 
being entirely concealed by the feathers of the back. TV hen the 
young were first hatched, they looked little, black, shapeless 
things with long necks and hardly any beak. They soon, howevei, 
grew, and entirely filled the nest. I never saw r the old bird sitting 
after the young had emerged from the eggs; she seemed to leave 
them alike in sun and rain. When feeding them, she would 
stand on the edge of the nest with her body very upiight. The 
first of these young ones flew on October 15. It was standing 
on the side of the nest as I happened to approach, when it 
immediately flew off, but fell among the flowers below. I place 
it again in the nest, but a moment after it was off again, nothing 
daunted by its first failure,—this second time with better 
success, for it flew over a wall close by and settled on a tree 
Oil 
