592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



petulant squeaking, as the possessors hurled themselves first at 

 one intruder and then at another, driving them back and forth, 

 as though playing battledore and shuttlecock with them. Twice 

 I saw the male who defended the western tree lock bills with a 

 visiting female and fall almost to the ground in combat; and 

 in several instances I noticed a hotly pursued visitor escape by 

 suddenly doubling, seizing a twig, and then hanging head down- 

 ward by one foot behind a cluster of leaves. As a rule, the ruby- 

 throat, when drinking, makes a perfectly audible humming, the 

 male making a sound somewhat louder and deeper than that pro- 

 duced by the female. It is, however, entirely within the range of 

 their accomplishments to hover silently, and it is not unusual for 

 a visitor to drink silently when successful in reaching a tree un- 

 seen. While I never have seen a male ruby throat drink from 

 the drills while perching, I have noticed the female doing so 

 scores of times. In fact, the female at the eastern tree perched 

 nearly a third of the time, sometimes on a twig from which she 

 could lean over and sip the sap, sometimes on the bark itself in a 

 position almost identical with that taken by the woodpecker. 



One morning while I was watching the new orchard, a shower 

 came up from behind the western spurs of Chocortia. Thunder 

 grumbled, the sky grew dark, and the wind swished viciously 

 through the slender birches. I wondered what the birds and 

 insects would do when the rain came. From where I sat, I could 

 see dozens of living things, most of which were more or less de- 

 pendent upon the sapsuckers' orchard. There were four of the 

 woodpeckers themselves, three humming birds, a hermit thrush, 

 two j uncos, three chickadees, a least flycatcher; five or six butter- 

 flies representing three species ; hornets and numbers of flies, ants, 

 and other small insects. As the rain began, the insects, with the 

 exception of the hornets, vanished at once. All the birds, save one 

 of the woodpeckers and the rubythroats, flew out of sight. The 

 remaining sapsucker was a young bird, who looked stupid, and 

 who received the rain by ducking his head and vibrating his tail 

 and wings as a bird does when he bathes in a pool. But the ruby- 

 throats amazed me by their conduct. They sought leafless twigs 

 with only the weeping sky above them, and there, apparently 

 with joy, extended their wings to the fullest extent, spread their 

 tails until every feather showed its point, and then received the 

 pelting, pounding rain as though it were holy water. They be- 

 came so wet that I doubted whether they could fly. Buzz-z-z ! 

 the vigilant male darted at an intruding female and drove her out 

 of sight, only to see her return again and again in the thickest of 

 the white drops in vain attempts to overcome his watchfulness. 

 It was evident that no ordinary shower could interfere with the 

 whirring wings of a humming bird. 



