192 SOME TENNESSEE BIEB NOTES. 



my daily notes till I went to Walden's 

 Ridge. There, in the forest, they were 

 noticeably abundant, — for humming-birds, 

 that is to say. It seemed to be the time of 

 pairing with them ; more than once the two 

 sexes were seen together, — an unusual 

 occurrence, unless my observation has been 

 unfortunate, after the nest is built, or even 

 while it is building. One female piqued my 

 curiosity by returning again and again to 

 the bole of an oak, hovering before it as 

 before a flower, and more than once clinging 

 to its rough upright surface. At first I 

 took it for granted that she was picking 

 off bits of lichen with which to embellish 

 the outer wall of her nest ; but after each 

 browsing she alighted here or there on a 

 leafless twig. If she had been gathering 

 nest material, she would have flown away 

 with it, I thought. 



At another time, in a tangle of shrubbery, 

 I witnessed a most lively encounter between 

 two humming-birds ; a case of fighting or 

 love-making, — two things confusingly alike 

 to an outsider, — in the midst of which one 

 of the contestants suddenly displayed so 

 dazzling a gorget that for an instant I 



