n cannot say that the
male ever fed the young ones, but is positive that he was frequently
about the nest after they were hatched. While they were still too young
to fly, a gardener, in pruning the tree, sawed off the limb on which the
nest was built. Mr. Darwin's mother rescued the little ones and fed them
with sweetened water, and on her son's return at night the branch was
fixed in place again, as best it could be, by means of wires. Meanwhile
the old birds had disappeared, having given up their children for lost;
and it was not until the third day that they came back,--by chance,
perhaps, or out of affection for the spot. At once they resumed the care
of their offspring, who by this time, it is safe to say, had become more
or less surfeited with sugar and water, and gladly returned to a diet
of spiders and other such spicy and hearty comestibles.

Mr. Henshaw, with an evident satisfaction which does him honor, remarks
upon the foregoing story as proving that, whatever may be true of male
hummers in general, there are at least some faithful Benedicts among
them. For myself, indeed, as I have already said, I hold no brief
against the ruby-throat, and, notwithstanding the seemingly unfavorable
result of my investigation into his habits as a husband and father, it
is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names. Before
doing that, we ought to know not only that he stays away from his wife
and children, but _why_ he stays away; whether he is really a shirk, or
absents himself unselfishly and for their better protection, at the risk
of being misunderstood and traduced. My object in this paper is to raise
that question about him, rather than to blacken his character; in a
word, to call attention to him, not as a reprobate, but as a mystery. To
that end I return to the story of my own observations.

In last month's article[13] I set forth somewhat in detail (if the
adverb seem inappropriate, as I fear it will, I can only commend it to
the reader's mercy) the closeness of our watch upon the nest there
described. For more than a month it was under the eye of one or other of
two men almost from morning till night. We did not once detect the
presence of the father, and yet I shall never feel absolutely sure that
he did not one day pay us a visit. I mention the circumstance for what
it may be worth, and because, whatever its import, it was at least a
lively spectacle. It occurred upon this wise: On the 19th of July,