THE RUFOUS HUMMER. 397 
uttered while wooing his mate. She perches quietly in the center of some 
small tree, apparently quite insensible to his frenzied actions. ‘These consist 
in flying up to a very considerable height, and then dropping in a circular 
course to within a few feet of where she sits. It is on the downward course 
that he makes 
his declaration 
of love, and if 
it is done to 
arouse her he 
ought to be suc- 
cessful. Cer- 
tainly it is a 
sound most 
startling to a 
human being, 
when it ex- 
plodes unex- 
pectedly  with- 
ina few feet of 
his head. 
It is almost 
Taken 
unnecessary to ™ 
< Oregon. 
say 
aamertnat «the 5... by 
esting habits Finley and 
of these little 
birds are of un- 
usual interest. RUFOUS HUMMER AT NEST. 
The male is a 
disgracefully idle fellow, never doing a stroke of work while the female is 
building the nest, and leaving her as soon as the eggs are laid. It seems that 
at least he might feed her while she sits so patiently upon her eggs; but no, 
he retires to some warm, sunny gulch and spends his time in selfish enjoyment. 
Strange to say, the first nest-building occurs during the first week in 
April, at which season sleet and cold rains are of not infrequent occurrence. 
This is long before the majority of the species have arrived from the South, 
and it would lead one to think that the first comers are already paired when 
they arrive. A nest containing two fresh eggs was found on the 14th of 
April, the eggs hatching on the 26th. On this last date it was raining in 
torrents with a bitter cold wind, yet the tiny young did not seem to suffer in 
the least, altho frequently left for as long as fifteen or twenty minutes bv 
