342 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Plumages. — [Author's note: The young hummingbird is hatched 

 naked, but pinfeathers soon appear, and the young bird is practically 

 fully grown and fully feathered in the ju venal plumage before it 

 leaves the nest. The sexes are unlike in the ju venal plumage. The 

 young male closely resembles the adult female, with the white tips 

 on the three outer tail feathers; but the feathers of the upper parts 

 are narrowly edged with grayish .buflf, the throat is marked with 

 narrow dusky streaks, and the sides and flanks are strongly tinged 

 with brownish buff. The young female is like the young male but 

 lacks the dusky streaks on the throat. Young males begin to acquire 

 one or more ruby feathers on the throat in August and September, 

 but no great progress in this direction is made before they leave for 

 the south, and the adult plumage is assumed before they return in 

 the spring. Dickey and van Rossem (1938) say: "In February and 

 March both adults and young go through a complete molt, and at this 

 time the young males acquire the red throat of maturity. Most indi- 

 viduals have completed this molt by the first week in March."] 



Food. — The hummingbird is popularly regarded solely as a sipper 

 of nectar, as it buzzes from flower to flower; as one who might say 

 with Ariel, "Where the bee sucks, there suck I"; but when it comes 

 down to the examination of stomach contents, it is proved that a 

 considerable part of the bird's food consists of insects, chiefly those 

 that come to the flowers the hummingbird visits. Frederic A. Lucas 

 (1893), after examining the contents of 29 stomachs of several species 

 of hummingbirds, comes to the following conclusion : 



It would seem to be safe to assume that the main food of Hummingbirds is 

 small insects, mainly diptera and hymenoptera. Homoptera are usually present, 

 and small spiders form an important article of food, while hemiptera and 

 coleoptera are now and then found. The small size of the insects may be 

 inferred from the fact that one stomach contained remains of not less than 

 fifty individuals, probably more. 



Most of the insects found occur in or about flowers, and my own views agree 

 with those of Mr. Clute, that it is usually insects, and not honey, that attract 

 Hummingbirds to flowers * * *. 



In view, however, of the testimony cited at the beginning of this paper, it 

 would seem unquestionable that Hummingbirds do to some extent feed on the 

 nectar of flowers and the sap of trees * * ♦. 



I am much inclined to believe with Dr. Shufeldt that Hummingbirds first 

 visited flowers for insects and that the taste for sweets has been incidentally 

 acquired. 



This taste for sweets is very well known to the many observers 

 who have supplied hummingbirds with sugar and water placed about 

 their gardens in artificial flowers. Miss Althea R. Sherman (1913), 

 for example, who has experimented in feeding hummingbirds during 

 seven summers, estimated that a single bird consumed "two tea- 

 spoonfuls of sugar daily." 



