and sent
imperative calls out of their three empty throats. As the parents did
not answer the summons, the young dozed off again, but when the old ones
did get courage to light near the nest there was such a rousing chorus
that they flew off alarmed for the safety of their clamorous brood.
After that outbreak, it seemed as if the mother bird would never go back
to her children; but finally she came to the tree and, after edging
along falteringly, lit on a branch above them. The instant she touched
foot, however, she was seized with nervous qualms and turned round and
round, spreading her tail fan-fashion, as if distracted.

To my surprise, it was the father bird who first went to the nest,
though he had the wit to go to it from the outside of the tree, where he
was less exposed to my dangerous glance. I wondered whether it was
mother love that kept her from the nest when he ventured, or merely a
case of masculine common-sense versus nerves. How birds could imagine
more harm would be done by going to the nest than by making such a fuss
five feet away from it was a poser to me. Perhaps they attribute the
same intelligence to us that some of us do to them!

While the blackbirds were making such a time over our heads, I watched
the hummingbirds buzzing around the petunias and pink roses under the
ranch-house windows, and darting off to flutter about the tubular
flowers of the tobacco-tree by the well. One day the small boy of the
family climbed up to the hummingbird's nest in the oak "to see if there
were eggs yet," and the frightened brood popped out before his eyes. His
sister caught one of them and brought it into the house. When she held
it up by the open door the tiny creature spread its little wings and
flew out into the vines over the window. The child was so afraid its
mother would not find it she carried it back to its oak and watched till
the mother came with food. The hummers were about the flowers in front
of the windows so much that when the front door was left open they often
came into the room.

In an oak behind the barn I found a hummingbird's nest, and, yielding to
temptation, took out the eggs to look at them. In putting them back one
slipped and dropped on the hard ground, cracking the delicate pink shell
as it fell. The egg was nearly ready to hatch, and I felt as guilty as
if having killed a hummingbird.

[Illustration: Arizona Hooded Oriole.

(One half natural size.)]

[Illustration: Baltimore