THE RUFOUS HU:kI]\IER. 



397 



uttered wliile wuoing his mate. She perches quietly in the center (^f some 

 small tree, aijparently quite insensible to his frenzied actions. These consist 

 in flying up to a very considerable height, and then dropping in a circular 

 course to within a few feet of where she sits. It is on the downward course 

 that he makes 

 his declaration 

 of love, and if 

 it is (I cine to 

 arouse her he 

 ought to be suc- 

 cessful. Cer- 

 tainly it is a 



sound 



most 



startling to a 

 human being, 

 when it ex- 

 plodes unex- 

 pectedly with- 

 in a few feet of 

 his head. 



It is aluKTSt 

 unnecessary to 

 say that the 

 nesting liabits 

 of these little 

 birds are of un- 

 usual interest. 

 The male is a 

 disgracefulh' idle fellow 



building the nest, and leavin 



Photo by 

 Finlcy and 

 Bohlman. 



KUFOUS IIL.M.MKI': .\ 1 .\I-.M. 



never doing a stroke of work while the female is 

 ler as soon as the eggs are laid. It seems that 

 at least he might feed her while she sits so patienth' up(:)n her eggs ; but no. 

 he retires to some warm, sunny gulch and spends his time in selfish enjoyment. 

 Strange to say, tlie first nest-building occurs during the first week in 

 April, at which season sleet and cold rains are of not infrequent occurrence. 

 This is long before the majority of the species ha\'e arri\ed from the vSouth, 

 and it would lead one to think that the first comers are alread\- paired wdien 

 the_\' arri\e. A nest containing two fresh eggs was found on the 14th of 

 April, the eggs hatching on the 26th. On this last date it was raining in 

 torrents wnh a bitter cold wind, yet the tiny young did mit seem to suffer in 

 tlie least, altho frequently left for as long as fifteen or twent}- luinutes bv 



