196 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



of work for hours every day; but any one who has seen a 

 cross old bumblebee attack a humming bird that has 

 crowded him out of a flower knows that he simply makes 

 sport of the bee's anger, tantalizing him in much the same 

 way that a jack rabbit on the western plains will tantalize 

 a farm dog, keeping just far enough ahead to cause it to 

 exert itself to the limit and, when he has had sport enough, 

 darting away like a flash. 



j Sugar is suitable for furnishing a large amount of heat 

 and energy to such things as bees and humming birds that 

 have power to digest it; but even they can not live on this 

 v alone. My friend's bird in about three or four weeks be- 

 gan to grow droopy and showed clearly that he was not 

 well in spite of the fact he was fed a few insects. Finally 

 he was taken out of doors and allowed to fly to the honey- 

 suckle vine and the jimson weed flowers where he caught 

 an abundance of insects and doubtless ate pollen, and soon 

 he became all right again. 



| When the autumn days came the great spirit that guides 

 the feathered folk whispered in his ear one evening that it 

 ,was time to fly away to the sunny land of flowers beyond 

 jthe seas. He was well then, and had been active all day; 

 but he was seen for the last time only an hour before 

 sundown. The next morning he was nowhere to be found. 

 il am sure humming birds migrate at night, for they are 

 always gone some morning after being active all day. 

 ^ubythroat never came back again unless he was the bird 

 who nested the next year on the branch of the Norway 

 spruce in my friend's yard. We could not be quite sure 

 ,whether this was true or not, for this bird, while tamer 

 than any other wild humming bird I have ever seen, was 

 yet too wild to allow any one to handle him, while it had 



