Donna Michael, age 10, of Atlanta, Ga., for her question:

What is a hummingbird's nest like?

A hummingbird's nest is meant to be seen only by those people who believe in fairyland. For only such people have eyes sharp enough to spot it. To ordinary people, it looks like nothing at all. Chances are, if they look right at it they mistake it for a wad of lichen stuck in the angle of a twig.

Those with sharper eyes, however, would know that this is no ordinary bump of lichen. It is a. tiny homy made with loving care and perfect in every detail. It is the miniature nest of the hummingbird, smallest feathered creature in the world.

The smallest of these pretty darlings is the bee hummingbird of Cuba. This jewel‑colored creature is but two inches long and half of this length is tail and beak. Ten of them, feathers and all, are needed to tip the scales at one ounce. This smallest of all birds builds a nest no bigger than a walnut shell.

The hummers of North America are all somewhat larger than this tiny fellow and most of their nests are about the size of half a hen's egg shell. The job of building this tiny home is done entirely by the mother bird. She chooses a crotch among the twigs of a tree or tall shrub. As a rule, she builds about 20 feet above the ground but she may choose to build higher or lower.

Her building materials are plant down., lichens and spider webs. For the main part of the nest she gathers fine fragments of plant cotton and silk and she is always happy to include some fuzz from a fiddle‑head fern frond. She uses her long curved beak to shape these materials into a hollow cup, safely anchored in the twigs.

Now she decorates the outside of her nest. Off she hums, whirring her wings at a ‑rate of 55 times a second., in search of lichens and threads of spider web.

She laces the threads around the outside of her downy nest and spangles them with lichens. The result is very beautiful  but it also blends in perfectly with the surroundings, making the nest invisible to prying eyes.

Into this fairy nest the Mama bird. lays two round white eggs. The eggs of a sizeable hummer measure about a quarter inch, no bigger than peas. For two weeks Mama sits on her precious eggs and then the wonderful day arrives. They hatch into bee‑sized babies, naked and helpless. Then off flies Mama. to get the groceries. She feeds herself on nectar from sweet flowers and eats the tiny bugs on their petals. This food is partly digested in her crop. Then she flies home and squeezes this milky juice down her babies throats. The little ones are soon clinging to the silos of the nest and exercising their tiny wings. At the age of throe weeks they are fully feathered and ready to hum off on their own