THE MALE RUBY-THROAT. 
“ Your fathers, where are they ?’’ — ZECHARIAH i. 5. 
WuiLek keeping daily watch upon a nest 
of our common humming-bird, in the sum- 
mer of 1890, I was struck with the persis- 
tent absence of the head of the family. As 
week after week elapsed, this feature of the 
case excited more and more remark, and I 
turned to my out-of-door journal for such 
meagre notes as it contained of a similar 
nest found five years before. From these it 
appeared that at that time, also, the father 
bird was missing. Could such truancy be 
habitual with the male ruby-throat? I had 
never supposed that any of our land birds 
were given to behaving in this ill-mannered, 
unnatural way, and the matter seemed to 
call for investigation. 
My first resort was, of course, to books. 
The language of Wilson and Audubon is 
somewhat ambiguous, but may fairly be 
taken as implying the male bird’s presence 
