BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



males. They discount his metallic green back by 

 also possessing it, but the throat ruby is his alone. 

 If we watch them day by day, the fears and hopes 

 and achievements of these delightful little beings 

 will, by discovery, become our own. We may see 

 them bathe, either in the midst of a small water- 

 fall, or actually wading into a pool whose depth 

 can be sounded only by millimeters. 



The first characteristic which we note is pug- 

 nacity. Hummingbirds drive moths, wasps, other 

 hummingbirds and birds of larger size from their 

 favorite flower beds. They have been seen ac- 

 tually to attack and put to flight crows, fly- 

 catchers and hawks, and their civil wars rage so 

 fiercely that two birds will sometimes fall head- 

 long to the ground, each gripping the other's bill. 

 As to actual enemies, giant bees resent their im- 

 pudence and will attack and repulse them, although 

 no one has ever witnessed a casualty in these fairy- 

 tale encounters. The elements are probably their 

 worst hazard, with such lesser pitfalls as barbs of 

 thistles, upon which I have found a hummingbird 

 impaled. 



While a female differs from the male chiefly in 

 the plain greyish white of her throat, yet psychi- 

 cally she is his antithesis. If a season's emotional 

 activity of the twain were diagrammed, that of 

 the male would run along rather low and evenly, 

 except for a brief period indicated by a tremendous 

 peak in the graph — the abrupt, explosive rise of 

 the fever of courtship. That of the female carries 



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