24 



PICARIAN BIRDS. 



several minutes at a time. On such occasions I have never been able to find a 

 female in the vicinity, and have come to the conclusion that it was sung for the 

 individual's own amusement. There is still another hummer-note — that of the 

 chase. They are very fond of chasing one another, sometimes for sport, often for 

 spite. This note also resembles the feeding-note, but is louder and possesses a 



chippering character, some- 

 times almost like the sound 

 produced by lightly and 

 rapidly smacking the lips 

 together. I can detect but 

 little difference between the 

 sexes, and it appears much 

 the same whether the chase 

 is in sport or anger. Further- 

 more, it is often made by the 

 "iireued as well as by the 

 [lui-suer. At such times I am 

 always reminded of a lot of 

 schoolboys playing 'tag.' If 

 a hummer is perched and a 

 person passes near, it starts 

 off, uttering a note similar to 

 tliat made while feeding; 

 l»ut, should it be a female 

 which you have frightened 

 from her nest, she will go off 

 silently." Mr. Ridgway men- 

 tions only two other records 

 of the song of the humming- 

 birds, quoting Gosse, to the 

 effect that the tiny mellisirga 

 of Jamaica sings, for ten 

 minutes at a time, a sweet 

 but monotonous little song; 

 while De Oca has observed a 

 similar fact with regard to 

 the wedge-tailed sabre-wing, 

 Mr. Ridgway adds that "al- 

 though the muffled buzzing or 

 humming noise, which has given this family of birds its distinctive name, is the 

 sound usually accompanying the flight of humming-birds, the males of some species 

 accompany their flight by a most remarkable noise, of an entirely different character. 

 While among the mountains of Utah, in 1869, the writer was for a long time 

 mystified by a shrill screeching noise, something like that produced by a rapidly 

 revolving circular saw when rubbed by a splinter. This noise was evidently in the 

 air, but I could not trace its origin, until I discovered a humming-bird passing 



HUMMING-BIRD AND NEST. 



