THE MALE RUBY-THROAT. 143 



with sugar and water, and gladly returned 

 to a diet of spiders and other such spicy and 

 hearty comestibles. 



Mr. Henshaw, with an evident satisfac- 

 tion which does him honor, remarks upon 

 the foregoing story as proving that, what- 

 ever may be true of male hummers in gen- 

 eral, there are at least some faithful Bene- 

 dicts among them. For myself, indeed, as 

 I have already said, I hold no brief against 

 the ruby-throat, and, notwithstanding the 

 seemingly unfavorable result of my investi- 

 gation into his habits as a husband and fa- 

 ther, it is by no means clear to me that we 

 must call him hard names. Before doing 

 that, we ought to know not only that he 

 stays away from his wife and children, but 

 why he stays away ; whether he is really a 

 shirk, or absents himself unselfishly and for 

 their better protection, at the risk of being 

 misunderstood and traduced. My object in 

 this paper is to raise that question about 

 him, rather than to blacken his character; 

 in a word, to call attention to him, not as a 

 reprobate, but as a mystery. To that end 

 I return to the story of my own observa- 

 tions. 



