FEEDING HUMMING BIRDS — SHERMAN. 467 



spot always occupied by the flowerpot holding the artificial flowers 

 when they were in place. Over this vacant spot she hovered an 

 instant before flying away. On a few other June days a bird of this 

 species was present and on the iTth one was seen drinking, but her 

 steady summer boarding did not begin until July 9. In the sixth 

 spring the species arrived earlier than usual. No bottles were out 

 on May 7 when a humming bird was seen hovering over the cus- 

 tomary place for the artificial flowers. As quickly as possible these 

 flowers were put out, but before they could be filled the bird was 

 thrusting her bill into the tiger lily. She came to drink on most of 

 the da3^s thereafter until June 1), also June 14, 15, and 24, and on 

 July 1 and 2; but it was not until July 16 that she came for constant 

 drinking. 



These dry and dull details have been given in full because two 

 theories were based on them. That the birds of former years have 

 returned to be fed seems unquestionable from their searching at once 

 flowerless bottle No. 4 and from the other evidences offered. That 

 the birds came in Mslj and at intervals in June and July before 

 becoming steady boarders about the middle of Jul.y, seems to indi- 

 cate that they nested 2 or 3 miles away, too far for daily trips after 

 incubation began. The supposition that these nestings were in the 

 woods is founded on the fact that in leaving the birds flew in that 

 direction, also because they were never found about the trees of the 

 four farmyards that intervene between our place and the woods. 

 That in two summers a mother rubythroat returned with her daugh- 

 ter was suggested by seeing on several occasions two birds drinking 

 together from one bottle, a phenomenon that needs explanation when 

 we consider the pugnacious disposition usually exhibited by one 

 drinker toward another. 



In further confirmation of the foregoing is the history of the 

 feeding in 1913. Bottles No. 4 and No. 6 were set out on April 30. 

 For two months and a half no humming bird visited them. It 

 chanced on July 14 that the stick support of No. 4 was lying on the 

 gTound, leaving only No. 6 in position, when my sister saw a hum- 

 ming bird thrusting her bill into it. She hastened to fill this bottle, 

 which was the first time it had "ever been filled, and it lacked but 

 eight days of two full years since it was first set out. Six days later 

 I was in the orchard a hundred feet or more distant from the bottles, 

 when a humming bird flew toward me and buzzed about my head as 

 do no other birds except those that are fed. With greatly acceler- 

 ated pulse I hurried to the house and filled the bottles. In exactlj^ 

 two minutes the humming bird was drinking fi'om one of them ; this 

 was the first drinking witnessed in that year. It was one of my most 

 thrilling experiences in bird study. Two marvelously long journeys 

 of from one to two thousand miles each had this small sprite taken 



