FEEDING HUMMING BIRDS SHERMAN. 461 



It was then suggested by my sister, Dr. E. Amelia Sherman, that 

 I try a bottle without an encircling flower. The problem of support- 

 ing a bottle without an artificial flower was solved in this way : The 

 bottle was incased in a piece of unbleached muslin, enough of the 

 cloth extending beyond the bottom of the bottle to allow the tacking 

 of it to a stick. The support of the bottle in a position slightly up 

 from the horizontal was furnished by a piece of leather with a hole 

 in it through which the bottle was thrust, and the leather was then 

 nailed to the stick. In this arrangement the most vivid imagination 

 can find no suggestion of a flower. It was put out on August 8, and 

 in 43 minutes a humming bird was drinking from it. The bottle 

 was then moved from proximity to the artificial nasturtium and 

 tiger lily, and a hiunming bird found it in its new location in 32 

 minutes. This place about 8 feet from the artificial flowers has been 

 its position in the four succeeding summers. In July, 1911, tM^o 

 more flowerless bottles were added to the group, maldng six in all. 

 For convenience in referring to them the flowerless bottles will be 

 called by numbers 4, 5, and 6. 



Bottle No. 4 had not been long in use before it was noted that the 

 humming birds showed preference for it, while the nasturtium was 

 sought least of all. This seemed due to the deep insetting of the 

 bottle in the flower, which caused the birds to brush against its lower 

 leaves, an unpleasant experience when sticky sirup adhered to it. 

 For this reason the filling of the nasturtium was sometimes omitted 

 for several days, whereupon the humming birds soon ceased to visit 

 it, although drinking regularly from the tiger lily a few inches 

 away. Wlien the filling was resumed the birds returned to it as they 

 had been accustomed. 



In the fourth season of experiments the bottle held by the green 

 flower was put out when the others were, but was not filled for six 

 weeks. During that time humming birds were present and drinl?:ing 

 on 23 days. It is safe to say that they were seen drinking fully 400 

 times from the other bottles, but never once were they seen to ap- 

 proach the green flower. The first morning it was filled four of them 

 were about the yard and one drank from this flower two minutes 

 after the filling. The following year (1911) after dark on July 14 

 the green-flower bottle was set in its bed of green and was left empty 

 for a few days. About noon on the 17th one of the rubythroats vis- 

 ited it, thrusting in her bill; the bottle was then filled for the first 

 time that year, and in a half minute a bird was drinking from it. 

 To this is added a transcript from my journal bearing date of July 

 17, 1912 : "About 9 a. m. before I had put out any sirup a humming 

 bird was dashing from bottle to bottle and tried the green-flower one. 

 It was bent over in the green foliage, and certainly has had no sirup 



