222 The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird 



constantly on the wing; but in reality it is only so while it is collecting 

 food, either the honey from flowers or the small aphis with which it feeds 

 its young, and it spends quite as much time in perching as any other bird. 

 Dead twigs of hemlock or Norway spruce make favorite perches here in 

 my New England garden, and it often seems as if the dainty little thing 

 chose the twigs with conscious regard to the color-protection of his sur- 

 roundings, when, lo ! he is off again, and this times perches in the open 

 on a taut wire, where the light plays on every ruby feather of his gorget, 

 making him conspicuous out of all proportion to his size. 



While he rests thus, preening first one wing and then the other, it is a 

 fine chance to study the bird in detail the upper parts feathered in 

 glistening green, with metallic tints of purple and blue upon wings and 

 tail, and the wonderful ruby throat, separated from 

 f e R . eas the dull, gray-green breast by a line of light. From 



the end of his needle-like bill to the tail-tip he meas- 

 ures a trifle under three and one-fourth inches, while the wings that make 

 the resonant hum, suggesting the motive power of a machine rather than 

 of a bird, measure only about one and a half inches on each side of the 

 body. Truly this is our "least" bird. 



So slim and compact is the Hummingbird that, seen at the usual dis- 

 tance, its plumage has more the appearance of metal-work than the shaft 

 and down of feathers. Its voice also has the sharp squeak of metallic 

 contact, and is utterly unlike the usual bird note. I have heard precisely 

 the same tone from a mouse. But, at close range, all these qualities are 

 transformed. This is a case when a bird in the hand gave me a different 

 idea of that same bird in the bush, forevermore. 



Let it be distinctly understood, however, that the coming within range 

 of my touch was by way of succor, and not by way of capture. Many 

 times as the same thing has happened, the first is the best remembered, 

 like many other first times, from the combination of surprise and novelty. 

 It was at the beginning of rose time. The long-tubed honeysuckles 

 on the back porch brought the Hummingbirds in close range with the din- 

 ing-room window, and, apparently fearless, they came to and fro during 

 all the daylight hours, sometimes conversing in amicable squeaks, and then 

 again waging a warfare of evidently angry words and 

 beak-thrusts, even though the pair were mates, one 

 with the ruby throat and the female without, after 

 the family custom. 



The lower part of the large window was screened by wire netting ; the 

 upper sash, with its diamond panes backed by the partly darkened room, 

 made a series of mirrors, in which the male bird presently spied his own 

 reflection. Could a high-spirited cavalier allow a rival not only to be in 

 the same garden but to be hovering above the very honeysuckle with Mrs. 

 Ruby ! Forward and back went Sir Ruby, fencing with the reflection first 

 in one pane and then another, squeaking shrilly, and gradually coming sc 

 close that he struck the pane recklessly Then came a slip and a des- 



