It is said that humming birds, at the nesting season, can not resist cotton; 

 that the building instinct compels them to take if to the nest, thereby offering 

 to the watcher a means of trailing the bird to the nesting site. The scheme has 

 not worked out in the writer's experience, but may be true nevertheless, and is 

 worth trying by any who wish to study the skillful little builder at her work. 



Does she use cobwebs to fasten the bits of lichen to her cup of down? 

 Blanchan, Bendire and others say that she does. This only increases our admira- 

 tion for her skill. The world has ever paid high and willing tribute to successful 

 workers in gossamer threads. 



At times there is a somber side to the gossamer story, for the master-weaver 

 of the web sometimes secures the ruby-throat itself in his filmy toils. 



"Sure enough," writes Bradford Torrey, "there hung the bird in a spiders' 

 web attached to a rosebush, while the owner of the web, a big, yellow-and-brown, 

 pot-bellied rascal, was turning its victim over and over, winding the web about it. 

 Wings and legs were already fast, so all the bird could do was to cry for help. 

 And help had come. The man at once killed the spider, and then, little by little, 

 for it was an operation of no small delicacy, unwound the mesh in which the 

 bird was entangled. The lovely creature lay still in his open hand till it had 

 recovered its breath, and then flew away." 



Watch our jeweled bit of birddom as he visits the clumps of columbine 

 in June or the flaming salvia in September. He darts out of nowhere, heralded 

 only by the whir of invisible wings. He poises, dips to a flower tube, runs his 

 long bill to its depths, hangs fixed in space while he rifles nectary of its sweets 

 and picks up tiny insects with his thread-like tongue. Now he backs away, rises 

 and hovers as though choosing his course, and is off so abruptly as to leave only 

 a visual memory of a ruby flash and a greenish streak. 



We watch the aeroplane as it glides and dips and turns and soars and 

 exclaim at the wonderful achievement of man in his conquest of the air. We 

 watch the hummer as it visits the honeysuckle and realize how crude are man's 

 attempts when measured against the master of the air. 



Our hummers have a reputation for fearlessness and courage. They are 

 much given to scrapping among themselves, and attack without hesitation any 

 bird, regardless of size, that dares intrude upon the confines of their nest. 



At dusk we often see the large gray hawk-moths making their early rounds 

 of the flower beds. They dart and hover, and probe the flower tubes as deftly 

 as the hummers themselves, but these six-legged cousins of the butterflies prefer 

 the night ; our ruby-throat is a lover of the sunshine. 

 "Voyager on golden air, 

 Type of all that's fleet and fair. 

 Incarnate gem. 

 Live diadem. 



Bird-beam of the summer day, — 

 Whither on your sunny way?" 



269 



