FEEDING HUMMING BIEDS SHERMAN, 46S 



One is led to wonder if the Homeric gods on high Olympus were 

 more deeply stirred by the appearance among them of the youthful 

 Ganymede bearing cups of nectar than are the humming birds at 

 sight of their cupbearer. When several of them are present the 

 wildest confusion reigns. Possibly not one of them is in sight when 

 the door is passed, yet instantly the air seems filled with them ; some 

 swinging back and forth in the air, squeaking and fighting, or dart- 

 ing from bottle to bottle thrusting in their bills as they pass, while 

 an overbold one will buzz about my head, sometimes coming under 

 the porch in her zeal for the meeting ; but the timorous ones fly from 

 their perches into sight over the bottles, then back into a bush. Some 

 one of these types of behavior marks the bird boarder from the mi- 

 grant. The latter pays no attention to cupbearer or bottle, but dili- 

 gently searches each bunch of blossoms. For two or three weeks 

 after the drinking birds have left there is occasionally a migrant 

 among the natural flowers. The bottles are full of sirup, but it 

 passes them unheedfull3^ 



Habits seem to change when steady drinking is practiced, but in 

 the case of the birds the habit does not appear to be a harmful one. 

 At once she ceases to search the flowers and, like the typical summer 

 boarder, she sits and waits for the food to be served. Each bird ap- 

 pears to have her favorite perch, a dead twig of syringa or lilac 

 bushes on the north, or on the south in one of the snowball bushes; 

 the telephone wires on either side of the street offer acceptable wait- 

 ing places at times. Not infrequently I have been intent upon other 

 duties about the yard and looking up have found a rubythroat 

 perched directly overhead, her bright eyes seeming to say " I want to 

 be fed." So complete appears the cessation of the search for other 

 food that it led to the keeping of a full record for the past three 

 years of every time one of these birds has been seen catching insects 

 or searching the natural flowers for food. Most of these instances 

 noted were, if the whole truth could be learned, probably, cases of 

 strangers just arrived within our gates that had not yet acquired the 

 drinking habit. 



In 1911 the drinking birds were about our place on 43 days. Dur- 

 ing that time on only four occasions was a humming bird seen catching 

 insects or probing the flowers. A large number of plants called 

 " Star of Bethlehem " had been raised, these flowers in previous sum- 

 mers having proved a great attraction to the rubythroat in the yard 

 of a friend living 2 miles distant ; but our drinking birds were never 

 seen to visit these flowers. After their departure strange humming 

 birds searched them thoroughly, as well as the phlox, tiger lilies, 

 sweet peas, nasturtiums, and clover. These strangers were present 

 on 12 days. In 1912 the drinkers were with us on 77 days, and were 



