90 Bird -Lore who had occupied a new nesting site the first season it was available and already had become so accustomed to man that she permitted her- self to be photographed at short range; but how little 1 knew is evi- dent on reading Mr. Burroughs' history of her season's experiences. Doubtless he could give similarly interesting accounts of other of his bird neighbors to whom he introduced me that day and the next, and whose portraits I present with only passing comment. The Hummer, for instance, who, with rare consideration for the needs of bird photography, had placed her nest in the low sweeping limb of an apple tree (see frontispiece), was an old acquaintance of his, HUMMER IHEDING and no detail of her domestic affairs, from the building of the nest to the appearance of the young, had escaped him. Acquaintance, I say, rather than friend, for in spite of the fact that her nest was within a few feet of a pathway, the suspicious little creature invariably darted from it whenever any one approached to within twenty feet of her. However, she returned in four or five minutes, sometimes alighting and settling in the nest as though with one movement, at others perching on its edge when the two surprisingly short bills of her half- fledged young could be seen projecting slightly beyond the rim of their downy home. This pose preceded what Mr. Torrey has so well described as the "frightful looking act" of feeding, of which the accom- panying picture shows the attitude assumeil by the parent.
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