33 



RUBY-THFIOATED H UMMINGBIR I .- 



are our tiniest birds, — little winged 

 gems Avith a body scarcely as big as the 

 thumb nail. In some lights the throat 

 of the male appears to be black but 

 when we get the proper view It glows 

 with fiery brilliance. Besides lacking 

 any color on the throat, the female has 

 a rounded tip to the tail while that of 

 her mate is forked. 



Hummingbirds do not, as so general- 

 ly believed, live upon honey or nectar 

 of flowers; to be sure they often drink 

 it, but their food is tiny insects which 

 they catch in the air and within the 

 depths of floAx^ers. 



Their nests are exquisite creations of 

 plant down, especially that from fern 

 stems, covered externally with lichens, 

 and saddled on the limb of any kind of 

 a tree at any height, either in woods, 

 orchards or dooryards. The two white 

 eggs are about the size and shape of 

 white beans. 



Hummingbirds have a fiery temper 

 out of proportion to their size and will 

 dash at an intruder with a fierceness 

 that always makes him dodge. 



contain pieces of cast-ofF snakeskin wound about the outer 

 edge. Their eggs are also peculiar — cream-colored, curi- 

 ously scratched with brown in a pattern very different from 

 that of birds of any other genus. 



CHIMNEY SWIFTS are birds of exceptional interest. 

 Formerly nesting in hollow trees or caves, they have in the 

 east abandoned the habits of their ancestors and live almost 

 exclusively in unused chimneys on dwellings or factories. 

 The birds are of a sooty color, well matching chimney in- 

 teriors, and their tail feathers terminate in sharp barbs 

 that are of the greatest assistance in enabling them to 

 cling to the upright surfaces. Their toe nails are quite 

 strong, but their feet are small and weak and wholly un- 

 fitted for perching, for which reason they probably never 

 alight in trees. Their wings are very long and narrow — 

 worked by powerful muscles that enable them to keep a- 

 wing all day without tiring. 



Their nests are made of small twigs cemented with glu- 

 tinous saliva of the birds to the insides of chimney walls. 

 Often several pairs nest in the same chimney and the voices 

 of the young birds clamoring as they are being fed can 

 often be heard within the walls. While I have never seen 



