The feeding process, which I had been so desirous to see, was of a sort
to make the spectator shiver. The mother, standing on the edge of the
nest, with her tail braced against its side, like a woodpecker or a
creeper, took a rigidly erect position, and craned her neck until her
bill was in a perpendicular line above the short, wide-open, upraised
beak of the little one, who, it must be remembered, was at this time
hardly bigger than a humble-bee. Then she thrust her bill for its full
length down into his throat, a frightful-looking act, followed by a
series of murderous gesticulations, which fairly made one observer's
blood run cold.

On the day after this (on the 2d of July, that is to say) I climbed into
the tree, in the old bird's absence, and stationed myself where my eyes
were perhaps fifteen feet from the nest, and a foot or two above its
level. At the end of about twenty minutes, the mother, who meantime had
made two visits to the tree, flew into place, and brooded for seventeen
minutes. Then she disappeared again, and on her return, after numberless
pretty feints and sidelong approaches, alighted on the wall of the nest,
and fed both little ones. The operation, though still sufficiently
reckless, looked less like infanticide than before,--a fact due, as I
suppose, to my more elevated position, from which the nestlings' throats
were better seen. After this she brooded for another seventeen minutes.
On the present occasion, as well as on many others, it was noticeable
that, while sitting upon the young, she kept up an almost incessant
motion, as if seeking to warm them, or perhaps to develop their muscles
by a kind of massage treatment. A measure of such hitchings and
fidgetings might have meant nothing more than an attempt to secure for
herself a comfortable seat; but when they were persisted in for fifteen
minutes together, it was difficult not to believe that she had some
different end in view. Possibly, as human infants get exercise by
dandling on the mother's knee, the baby humming-bird gets his by this
parental kneading process. Whether brooding or feeding, it must be said
that the hummer treated her tiny charges with no particular carefulness,
so far as an outsider could judge.

The next day I climbed again into the tree. The mother bird made off at
once, and did not resume her seat for almost an hour, though she would
undoubtedly have done so earlier but for my presence. Again and again
she perched ne