THE HUMMING-BIRDS OF CHOCORUA. 269 



silently, and it is not unusual for a visitor to 

 drink silently when successful in reaching a tree 

 unseen. 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 west- 

 ern spurs of Chocorua. 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 

 dependent upon the sapsuckers' orchard. There 

 were four of the woodpeckers themselves, three 

 humming-birds, a hermit thrush, two juncos, 

 three chickadees, a least flycatcher ; five or six 

 butterflies representing three species ; hornets 

 and numbers of flies, ants, and other smaU in- 

 sects. 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 

 ruby-throats, flew out of sight. The remaining 



