24 THE AUDUBON: 8 UDLDLE Tee 
The young bird, fluttering his wings came as close to his mother 
as the wire would allow. Then the old bird poked her long bill 
into the little fellow’s widely opened one and shook him vigor- 
ously. After repeating this performance several times she dart- 
ed away and the baby seemed thoroughly satisfied. 
But is was growing dark and the nights were chilly so I re- 
moved the cage into the house, wrapped a piece of flannel about 
it and said good-night to my little charge. Next morning I 
found him shivering and very weak, in fact it seemed that he 
was about to die. However the sunlight and his mother’s food 
soon revived him. Yes, we found her perched on the telephone 
wire anxiously awaiting the arrival of her child. 
The task of identifying the youngster now confronted me. 
At the museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, we saw 
mounted over three hundred species of hummingbirds ranging 
in size from an inch to six inches and the state of California it- 
self contains no mean number. But after a long process of elim- 
ination I came to the conclusion that this must be the Anna 
Hummingbird (Calypte anna) a plain species averaging about 
three and one half inches in length. From that time on my new 
pet’s name was “Anna’’. I judged him to be about three weeks 
old for he showed signs of restlessness and seemed eager to try 
his wings. Deciding that these members might need exercise 
I removed him from the cage to the lawn swing to allow him to 
try his aerial powers. Although these proved to be quite weak 
Anna was no coward about trying and he attempted several short 
flights. 
During the course of the day the mother made many trips to 
the cage, however, she was always nervous and always on the 
offensive. Many other hummers hung over the Bougainvillea, 
which seemed to be a favorite food vine, but she allowed these 
intruders no peace. In fact she had more tolerance for the 
human race than for others of her kind for she allowed us to 
approach her baby without protest whereas had any bird gone 
near the cage I am sure that he would have regretted it. In order 
to test her I seated myself on the lawn near the cage with little 
Anna in my hand wondering if his mother would come and feed 
him. After an hour and a half of almost motionless waiting 
during which mother hummer flew about anxiously I felt her 
feet clasping my finger. It was a wonderful sensation to feel the 
grip of those tiny toes and when I slowly turned my head and out 
of the corner of my eye saw her feeding her eager little one my 
joy was supreme. Time after time I held the baby in my hand 
and time after time she fed it there. On the fifth day she showed 
little or no fear coming promptly to my hand but starting ner- 
vously at the click of the camera. 
During this time the baby’s wings had been growing stronger 
and on the seventh day he took flight from my hand to a near by 
fig tree, where mounting higher and higher he finally reached 
