"In a dead yellow birch."
I believe that Ruby-throat is so far domesticated that he rejoices over every new flower-garden. There was nearly half an acre of gladioli in the neighborhood one summer, where all the humming-birds gathered from far and near. Here, for the only time in my life, I saw a flock of humming-birds. I counted eight one day; and the gardener told me that he had often seen a dozen of them among the spikes. They squeaked like bats, and played—about as bullets might play. In fact, I think I dodged when they whizzed past me, as a soldier does the first time he is under fire.
"So close I can look directly into it."
One of my friends had a cellar window abloom with geraniums. A ruby-throat came often to this window. One day the mistress of the flowers caught the wee chap in her hands. He knew at once that she meant no harm and quietly submitted. A few days later he returned and was captured again. He liked the honey, and evidently the fondling, too, for he came very regularly after that for the nectar and the lady's soft hands.
The nest behind my garden is in the top of a tall, slender maple, with oaks and chestnuts surrounding and overshadowing it. Finding a nest like this is inspiration for the rest of life. The only feat comparable to it is the discovery of a bee-tree. Finding wild bees, I think, would be good training for one intending to hunt humming-birds' nests in the woods. But no one ever had such an intention. No one ever deliberately started into the woods a-saying, "Go to, now; I'll find a humming-bird's nest in here!"
Humming-birds' nests are the gifts of the gods—rewards for patience and for gratitude because of commoner grants. My nests have invariably come this way, or, if you choose, by accident. The nearest I ever came to earning one was in the case of this one in the maple. I caught a glimpse of a humming-bird flashing around the high limbs of a chestnut, so far up that she looked no bigger than a hornet. I suspected instantly that she was gathering lichens for a nest, and, as she darted off, I threw my eyes ahead of her across her path. It was just one chance in ten thousand if I even saw her speeding through the limbs and leaves, if I got the line of her flight, to say nothing of a clue to her nesting-place. It was little short of a miracle. I had tried many times before to do it, but this is the only time I ever succeeded: my line of vision fell directly upon the tiny builder as she dropped to her nest in the sapling.
The structure was barely started. I might have stared at it with the strongest glass and never made it out a nest; the sapling, too, was no thicker at the butt than my wrist, and I should not have dreamed of looking into its tall, spindling top for any kind of a nest. Furthermore, as if to rob one of the last possibility of discovering it, a stray bud, two years before, had pushed through the bark of the limb about three inches behind where the nest was to be fixed, and had grown, till now its leaves hung over the dainty house in an almost perfect canopy and screen.