BIRDS OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS. IO9 



The Bahama Islands are the home of this beautiful little Hum- 

 ming-bird. It is very abundant in the neighborhood of Nassau, 

 where I procured a fine series of specimens. Dr. Bryant gives an 

 interesting account of this species. He says, "All the specimens I 

 procured, seven in number, were killed in February and the earl)' 

 part of March. At that time its food consisted almost entirely of 

 a small green apkis, found abundantly in the West India vervain 

 {K stachytarphetd), a small blue flower that grows in all the dry 

 pastures. Gosse calls the Least Humming-bird of Jamaica the 

 Vervain Humming-bird from its hovering round the plant, but the 

 name would apply as well to the present species. I saw nothing in 

 its habits differing from those of the common ruby-throated species, 

 with the exception that it was more quarrelsome in its disposition, 

 chasing the Fighter, as the Tyrannus caudifasciattis is called, when- 

 ever it came near him, and that its note is louder and shriller than 

 that of our species, and much more frequently uttered. 



" Incubation commences by the ist of March. I saw three nests 

 of this bird. One found on the 3d of March contained two eggs, 

 partly hatched; a second, April 10, one egg; and another in May, 

 two eggs. The nests were all composed of the same materials, 

 principally the cotton from the silk-cotton tree, with a few downy 

 masses that looked as if derived from some species of asclepias. 

 This was felted and matted together, and the outside stuck over 

 with bits of lichens and little dry stalks or fibres of vegetable 

 matter. . . . The eggs, like those of all others of the family, arc but 

 two in number, snow-white when blown, and slightly rosy before." 



