394 THE BLACK-CHINNED HUMMINGBIRD. 
While more than five hundred species of Hummingbirds—and these all 
confined to the New World—are known to science, those which have looked 
northward at all have shown a decided preference for the Pacific Coast. Thus, 
we have four species in Washington, and we send our boldest member, Selas- 
phorus rufus, as far north as the St. Elias range in Alaska, while our friends 
east of the Mississippi River know only one species, the Ruby-throat, Tro- 
chilus colubris, which is own cousin, and only own cousin to our 7. alexandri. 
Contrary to the popular belief Hummers do not feed largely upon nectar, 
but insert their needle-bills into the depths of flowers mainly for the purpose of 
capturing insects. This explains the otherwise puzzling habit the birds have of 
revisiting the same flower beds at frequent intervals. It is not to gather new- 
flowing sweets, but to see what flies the sweets themselves have gathered. If 
a Hummingbird extracted honey to any great extent—it does some—it would 
be rifling the bait from its own traps. Again, the bird is not footless, as 
some suppose, for it spends a good deal of time perching on exposed limbs, 
from which it may dart, Flycatcher fashion, after passing insects. 
Nor is the bird quite songless. At La Claire’s, on the banks of the 
Pend d’ Oreille River, we once witnessed a very pretty episode in the life of 
the Black-chinned Hummer. We were passing beside a brush-and-log fence 
in a clearing, when we noticed the rocking song-flight of a male Black-chin. 
The bird first towered to a height of forty feet, or such a matter, with loudly 
buzzing wing, then descended noisily in a great loop, passing under a certain 
projecting branch in the fence, and emitting along the lower segment of his 
great semicircle a low, musical, murmuring sound of considerable beauty. 
This note, inasmuch as we stood near one end of the fairy lover’s course, was 
raised in pitch a musical third upon each return journey. Back and forth the 
ardent hero passed, until he tired at length and darted off to tap a Canada 
lily for nourishment, or the pretense of it. Then he perched on a twig at 
ten feet and submitted to a most admiring inspection. 
The Hummer’s back, well up on the neck, was of a dull green shade, the 
wings were dusky, and the head dusky, shading into the deep velvety brownish 
black of the throat. There was no lustrous sheen of the gorget in the dull 
light, but on each side of the median line of the throat lay an irregular patch 
of metallic orange. The underparts were tinged with dusky and dull rufous; 
and these modest vestments completed the attire of a plain-colored but very 
dainty bird. 
Upon the passionate resumption of his courting dance we ordered an 
investigation, and succeeded in finding “the woman in the case.” She rose 
timidly from the thicket at the very lowest point of the male’s song circuit, 
but at sight of us quickly took to the brush again. 
The fairy’s nest is commonly saddled to an obliquely descending branch of 
willow, alder, cottonwood, or young orchard tree. It is a tiny tuft of vege- 
