24 Bird Portraits 
artificial trumpet-vine flowers, and by filling them with sugar water, 
to provide a daily feast for her Humming-bird neighbors. Though 
the birds are very irritable and pugnacious when wild, frequently 
attacking each other with the shrill squeaks which are their only 
notes, yet, in captivity, they prove very gentle and almost affectionate. 
The Humming-bird has discovered another method of obtaining the 
sweet liquor which it loves. The Sapsucker, or Yellow-bellied Wood- 
pecker, is in the habit of drilling rows of small holes into the maples 
of the northern forests, and sucking out the sap which fills these 
little wells. Many insects are attracted to the sweet fluid, and the 
Humming-birds also come as uninvited guests to the feast; so that 
while the Woodpecker is drinking on one side of the tree, butter- 
flies, bees, wasps, and Humming-birds are fluttering about the other. 
By the end of September, the season for honey gatherers is 
about over in the North, and the wings which can support the little 
body for so many seconds in front of a flower, now take it southward 
to the tropics, where there are always flowers. It is not until May, 
not until the red blossoms of the Japan quince are open, that the 
Humming-birds return. 
The Ruby-throated Humming-bird is the only species found 
on the Atlantic coast; the female, however, lacks the ruby throat, 
and is sometimes taken for another species. Humming-birds seen 
at dusk, if caught, will prove to be, not birds but clear-winged or 
Humming-bird moths. In South America, however, there are over 
four hundred different species of Humming-birds. A museum case 
full of these is a marvel of beauty and interest; the iridescent colors 
of their gorgets, or throat-pieces, the variety of shapes which their 
bills assume, the development of their throat and tail feathers, give 
one the impression of a show case full of fantastic jewels. 
Res 
