who flew off with a whirr like an
angry little spinning-wheel--if such a proper Puritan thing is ever
angry; and there in the nest were two tiny eggs, like white beans.

"Come back by the fence and watch," said Joe. "She doesn't like to leave
the nest much when it is toward night."

"It's a pity her mate is dead. How lonely she must be!" said Dodo, who
had a tender little heart.

"I do not think her mate is dead," said the Doctor; "he is merely
staying away, after a custom of his family. The bird whose nest we see
there is called the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, because he has a patch of
glittering ruby-red feathers under his chin, at the top of his
buttoned-up vest that hardly shows any while shirt-front. He wears a
beautiful golden-green dress-coat, with its dark purplish tails deeply
forked. His wife looks very much like him, only she has no ruby jewels
to wear.

"Bold as this bird is in darting about and chasing larger ones, he is
less than four inches long--only about the size of one of the hawk-moths
that come out to feed, just as this valiant pygmy lancer leaves the
flowers for the night.

"These Hummingbirds live on honey and very small insects, and dread the
cold so that they spend the winter southward from Florida. But as soon
as real spring warmth comes, they spread over the United States, east of
the plains, and north even to the Fur Countries. They are the only kind
found in the eastern half of North America, though there are more than a
dozen other species in the West, most of them near the Mexican borders
of the United States.

"When the Hummers arrive here, early in May, we see the brilliant males
darting about--sometimes, I am sorry to say, quarrelling with their
rivals and giving shrill cries like the squeaking of young mice. The
last of May the dainty nest is made of plant-down and lichen scales.
Then the male goes off by himself and sulks. You may see him feeding,
but he keeps away from the nest--selfish bird that he is--until the
little ones are ready to fly.

"Meanwhile the mother takes all the care and trouble herself, feeding
her little Hummers in a peculiar way. She swallows tiny insects, and
when they have remained a little while in her crop she opens her beak,
into which the young bird puts its own and sucks the softened food, as a
baby does milk from its bottle."

"I was wondering this very morning," said Joe, "how the old bird was
going to feed her young ones when those two eggs hatc