Part 26

The toilet of this lilliputian in feathers, performed on her chosen twig as it often was, interested me greatly. As carefully as though she were a foot or two, instead of an inch or two long, did she clean and put in order every plume on her little body, and the work of polishing her beak was the great performance of the day. This member was plainly her pride and her joy; every part of it, down to the very tip, was scraped and rubbed by her claws, with the leg thrown over the wing, exactly as big birds do. It was astonishing to see what she could do with her leg. I have even seen her pause in mid-air and thrust one over her vibrating wing to scratch her head.

Then when the pretty creature was all in beautiful order, her emerald-green back and white breast immaculate, when she had shaken herself out, and darted out and drawn back many times her long bristle-like tongue, she would sometimes hover along before the tips of the fence-stakes, which were like laths, held an inch apart by wires,--collecting, I suppose, the tiny spiders which were to be found there. She always returned to the honeysuckle, however, to finish her repast, opening and closing her tail as one flirts a fan, while the breeze made by her wings agitated the leaves for two feet around her. Should a blossom just ready to fall come off on her beak like a coral case, as it sometimes did, she was indignant indeed; she jerked herself back and flung it off with an air that was comical to see.

When the hot wind blew, the little creature seemed to feel the discomfort that bigger ones did: she sat with open beak as though panting for breath; she flew around with legs hanging, and even alighted on a convenient leaf or cluster of flowers, while she rifled a blossom, standing with sturdy little legs far apart, while stretching up to reach the bloom she desired.

Two statements of the books were not true in the case of this bird: she did not sit on a twig upright like an owl or a hawk, but held her body exactly as does a robin or sparrow; and she did fly backward and sideways, as well as forward.

Toward the end of June my tiny visitor began to make longer intervals between her calls, and when she did appear she was always in too great haste to stop; she passed rapidly over half a dozen blossoms, and then flitted away. Past were the days of loitering about on poplar twigs or preening herself on the peach-tree. It was plain that she had set up a home for herself, and the mussy state of her once nicely kept breast feathers told the tale,--she had a nest somewhere. Vainly, however, did I try to track her home: she either took her way like an arrow across the garden to a row of very tall locusts, where a hundred humming-birds' nests might have been hidden, or turned the other way over a neighbor's field to a cluster of thickly grown apple-trees, equally impossible to search. If she had always gone one way I might have tried to follow, but to look for her infinitesimal nest at opposite poles of the earth was too discouraging, even if the weather had been cool enough for such exertion.

When at last I could endure the wind and the dust and the heat no longer, and stood one morning on the porch, waiting for the most deliberate of drivers with his carriage to drive me to the station, that I might leave Utah altogether, the humming-bird appeared on the scene, took a sip or two out of her red cups, flirted her feathers saucily in my very face, then darted over the top of the cottage and disappeared; and that was the very last glimpse I had of the little dame in green.

INDEX.

Acadian flycatcher, 161.

Arkansas goldfinch, 23.

At four o'clock in the morning, 95.

Barbed wire fence, 157.

Behind the tangle, 246.

Birds: and poets, 194. a strange song, 73. different ways, 264. hard to study, 20. in Colorado, 18. in Colorado Springs, 260. in Denver, 260. in the "Wrens' Court," 161, 166, 168. leave nesting place, 154. morning chorus, 21, 22, 105. music in Colorado, 32. not on exhibition, 19. not sing alike, 34. panic among, 39. unfamiliar, 23, 259. Utah, 260.

Black-headed grosbeak, 244, 251. song of, 244.

Blue jay, 126. and doll, 103. and red-headed woodpecker, 104. apple-tree nest, 151. a struggle, 149. attentive to mate, 127. bad name, 147. devoted mother, 127. eating, 144. getting over the ground, 145. home deserted, 140. interview with, 146. joke or war-cry? 134. manners, 130, 132, 144. my search for nest, 126. no pretense, 130. pine-tree nest, 126. vocabulary, 133. when babies are noisy, 131. with a stranger, 148. with catbirds, 150.

Blue jay, the young: accident to, 140. beauty of, 143. climber, 141. first outing, 138. imperfect, 152. intelligence in house, 152. on edge of nest, 137. returned to parents, 153.

Bobolink song, 120.

Burro an investigator, 89.

Camp Harding, 9.

Camping in Colorado, 3.

Cañon wren, the, 74. manners, 86, 87. song, 74.

Cardinal grosbeak, 107. abandoning the nest, 120. as a father, 113. confidence in people, 121. delight of parents, 123. eating corn, 109, 115. importance of the builder, 119. kindness to young, 117. manners, 107. nest, 122. on grass, 105, 107. politeness to mate, 116. reception of woodpecker, 108. rose trellis nest, 121. speeding the parting guest, 125. victim of English sparrow, 114.

Cardinal, the young, 113. characteristics, 114. first baby out, 122. food of, 123. song of, 116. training, 116. with sparrows, 114, 115.

Carolina wren, the great: babies appear, 172. ceremony of approaching, 177. father disturbed, 175. first sight of, 159. fighting a chipmunk, 178. hard to see, 177. interruption to study, 168. manners, 163, 173, 175. mother anxious, 176. nest, 149, 182. song, 162, 164. trailing, 162. "Wrens' Court," 160.

Carolina wren, the young: cries of, 181. delay in taking flight, 179. development of, 174. first sallies, 180, 181. manners, 178.

Catbird song, 23.

Cat on lawn, 112.

Cedar-tree little folk, 194.