he presence of human beings,
with their interests, their anxieties, and their cares, passing far
below on the road, or what even the solitary bird-student, sitting hour
after hour by the rocks in silence, turning inquisitive eyes upon them?
The green tree was their world, and their mother was queen. Valiantly
did this indefatigable personage drive away every intruder, bravely
facing the chickadee who happened to alight in passing, even showing
fight to the wasps that buzzed about her castle in the air. I shall
always think she really knew me, and had a not unfriendly feeling toward
me, for when I met her about the place, even away from the nest, she
frequently greeted me with what one would not wish to be so
disrespectful as to call a squeaking twitter.

[Sidenote: _THE BABY FLIES._]

As the end of the three weeks reported to be necessary to fit baby
hummers for life drew near, I rarely left the rocky ledge for an hour of
daylight, so anxious was I to see a nestling try his wings. The mother
herself seemed to be in a state of expectancy, and would often, after
feeding, linger about the little home, as if inviting or expecting a
youngster to come out to her. At the last I could not stay in my bed in
the morning, but rushed out before sunrise, remembering how momentous
are the early morning hours in the bird-world. But it was noon of the
twenty-first day of his life when the first baby flew. He had just been
fed, and he sat on the edge of the nest beating his wings, when all at
once away he went, floating off like a bit of thistledown, up and out of
sight. Though expecting it and looking for it, I was greatly startled
when the moment came.

The last act in the little drama was a pretty scene in the bushes. I
was wandering about in the hope of one more interview, when suddenly my
lady and a young one alighted on a twig before me. She appeared to feed
the youth, hovered about him an instant, and with the tip of her beak
touched him gently on the forehead. Then, with a farewell twitter, both
flew away over my head, so closely they almost swept me with their
wings. And so the pretty story of the nest was ended.

VII.

MY LADY IN GREEN.

Truly a fairy-like dwelling was that nest on the apple-tree; about the
size of a walnut, with one leaf for a shelter. It was placed--I had
almost said grew--in a slender crotch of a low-hanging bough. No coarse
grass stems or bark fibres bound it to its slight moorings; it seeme