Humming birds. 



Order, Macrochires. 

 Family, Trochilidae. 



428. RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD. Trochilus colubris. 

 The smallest of our birds. Bright irridescent green abovie. Chin black. 

 Ruby-colored throat. Gray beneath. Long, needle-like bill. Female 

 without ruby throat. Eggs white. 



"Breathes there a man with soul so dead" that he does not 

 exclaim when he sees a ruby-throat ? A flash, a humming about the 

 canna bed, a flash to the nasturtiums and away. Gone like a reverie 

 at eventide, a lost chord, an artist's dream, a bubble on a reed, the 

 evidence of things not seen. Sipping the honey dew while the rosy 

 petals pale before its jeweled throat, wishing to be gone and gone 

 ere the wish were made, the very spirit of the honeysuckle of yester- 

 year, it leaves you looking at the flower, its silent partner in the 

 little world of miracles. Did it not set you wondering? Did you 

 not feel the mystery of the flowers, the mystery of life? Did you 

 feel that it needed a song other than the song without words that 

 trembled from your heart strings ? 



Now you stand by the side of its nest, of gauzy lichens, of 

 fluffy plant-down and the spirits of dead flowers. Every tiny bit 

 a miracle of nature molded about the silken breast of the sprightly 

 little mother, so that when she floats upon it, her little heart will 

 warm the waxen eggs to life. You cannot raise a hand against it. 



Twice I have seen them, wee, little knots saddled upon the 

 apple boughs, half hidden by the leaves, and twice were days made 

 memorable for life. There was the brook making the merry sun- 

 beams dance as it sped to the silent pool below ; the apple trees 

 were opening their myriad pink chalices for the drowsy bees that 

 wheeled among them ; the leaves wore the waxy green of the early 

 Maytime; in the garden the lilac buds were bursting; the air was 

 fresh with the breath of lilies; the aromatic trees gave back the 

 spicy odors of a burning censer and a thousand muffled bits of 

 insect music made chorus for the humming of the ruby-throat. And 

 the old house stood there in spotless white and green as though it 

 thought it were the center of the landscape, but not for me — they 

 were all but the settings of that fairy little nest. 



