Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-03

A description of two humming bird
nests is contained in a letter received
by this column recently. 1t was
prompted by a sentence in a recent
article here to the effect that we had
never seen such a nest and had never
known person who had.
You do know one person who has
seen baby humming bird" writes this
Takoma Park woman. In fact, I per-
sonally knew a pair of them, and since
l have had varied acquaintanceShips
with members of the ruby-throat fam
lily, thought you might be interested
to hear of them.
1T has been my chance luck to have
found two humming bird nests - and
both were built quite low, about midway.
say, between the first and second story
windows of an ordinary frame house,
and both were in the yard of my old
home at Luray, Va.
I'm each case just happened to look
into the tree and right at the nest.
The first one. when I was about the
age Jane is now, thrilled me exceed
ingly. There 1t was only a few feet
above me on a horizontal branch of the
silver poplar by the front gate.
I'VE could not see into it and only
rarely saw the birds near it. Unfor-
tunately, however, we did see Sparrows
near 1t several times, and one morning
the first interested passerby reported
the nest wrecked, by the sparrows we
always supposed, as it was torn to
5hredS.
But my second nest, found some 10
years later, was in every way more sue
cessful. An apple tree stood close to
the west side of the house. and one
day l looked into it from a second
story window and straight at what
fairly took my breath, for it looked like
humming bird on a nest.
Il ran for binoculars to verify it. and
it truly was. This time there were no
Interruptions. Just once happened to
look when the bird was off and was
rewarded by glimpse of white deep in
the down OF the nest Next time I
caught the bird off there were babies
there, and then came the most entranc-
ing scenes of all, for we could watch
the parents feed them, which they did
by the reorganization method
Best of all, though, was when the
babies grew larger and could really be
seen. They always sat, tail to head,
crosswise in the nest, and were per-
fectly adorable. After all too short
time-and no wonder, as they more than
filled the nest-they disappeared having
apparently completed a successful nest
ing period"
Our correspondent twice held a hum
ming bird in her hand That Is a
record for other bird lovers to shoot at.
Perhaps no one who has watched these
fairy little birds on a quiet Summer
evening but has longed to hold one, If
only for few seconds.
She continues
Twice, too, have I had the thrill of
holding ruby-throat in my hand. One
rainy Summer day one dipped by acct
dent under the heavy canopy of honey
suckle overhanging a porch and found
himself trapped beneath the ceiling.
"Bewildered, it kept humping itself
as it few up instead of down. / ran
for my butterfly net. and my father
succeeded in placing the hoop of the net
over the bird as 1t lowered against the
ceiling.
las took the net to extricate the
bird it played dead lying perfectly
limp in my hand. We knew it was un-
hurt, so made the most of our chance
to examine it until / detected signs of
Its coming out of 1t. Then kept quiet.
hand open. and-whizz!-that's the end
of that story.
X X
But the other one was so enhancing
as to sound faxed. I looked out at
border Of nasturtiums one day just in