I I 8 PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



('87, p. 104) records that on July 3, 1886, he was given a speci- 

 men which had been caught alive in an unused chimney of the 

 Halfway House on Mount Washington (3,840 feet) but that no 

 others were seen during his short stay there, nor had the men 

 at the house ever before observed the bird. Mr. Bradford Tor- 

 rey ('84, p. 57) also states that on June 17 he found a company 

 of these birds "flying criss-cross over the summit" of Mt. 

 Washington, but there is nothing to prove that they ever nest in 

 any of the buildings there. Mr. Owen Durfee also tells me of a 

 single bird seen flying about the summit on July 6, 1889. In 

 their daily flights the birds often travel far from their nesting- 

 chimney, over the woods, so that it is not uncommon, while 

 on a trip through the mountains, to hear them chattering far 

 overhead when the nearest building must have been two or three 

 miles distant. During late August, I have not infrequently seen 

 them at Intervale, migrating southward, often in large flocks 

 numbering upwards of one hundred birds, and at so great a 

 height that they appeared but specks in the sky, though their 

 distant chattering could be faintly heard. On such occasions, a 

 few Eave Swallows, distinguished by their flight, have some- 

 times been observed in company with the Swifts. The fall mi- 

 gration is practically over by the first week of September, 

 though Mr. Bradford Torrey ('96, p. 200) has once observed 

 one flying swiftly southward near the Profile House so late as 

 October 1 . 



Dates : April 29 to September 7 (October 1.) 



14(). Trochilus COlllbris Linn. Ruby-throated Hum- 

 mingbird. 



• 



A not uncommon summer resident, and a common fall mi- 

 grant. Though usually observed in the more open regions and 

 about settlements, it is also occasionally found to nest in the 

 woods at the lower altitudes, and I once saw a single bird at 

 about 3,000 feet near Carter Notch, toward which it was flying. 

 During the month of August while the Jewelweed (Impatiens) 

 blooms in luxuriant beds in the lowlands, the hummingbirds 

 are constantly to be found about them. Often from four to six 

 are in view at once, some dipping daintily into the flowers, 



