on feeding humming birds during seven summers. 329


any attention to them after finding the sirup. Ten minutes later

she drank deeply from the bottle and was seen no more that day.


In this way began the feeding of the ruby-throated humming

birds, which has been continued each summer since 1907 with a vary¬

ing number of birds. The first season it appeared that but a single

bird found the bottled sweets. Perhaps it was the same bird that

came the following summer, and was not joined by a second hum¬

ming bird until the latter part of August. In 1909 the number was

gradually augmented until seven of these birds were present to¬

gether. The following year there were days when again seven came

at one time ; since then four has been the largest number seen to¬

gether.


The days and weeks are calm and quiet ones when a single

bird has the bottles to herself. More or less fighting ensues as soon

as another bird comes on the scene, and the tumult of battle in¬

creases with each new arrival until the presence of six or seven of

these tiny belligerents makes the front yard appear like the staging of

a ballet. With clashing sounds and continuous squeaking cries they

chase each other about, often swinging back and forth in an arc of a

circle with a sort of pendulum like motion. Sometimes they clinch

and fall to the earth, where the struggle is continued for many

seconds. So jealous are they lest others share the sirup that they

seem more anxious to fight than to drink. When seven are present

they are very difficult to count, and appear to be threefold that

number. We have read accounts of 40 or 100 humming birds

hovering about a tree or bush. That these numbers must clearly

have been estimates, probably large ones, too, anyone must believe

who has made sure that only seven birds have created the maze

of wonderful and beautiful motion in which there seemed to be a

dozen or a score of participants.


The number of bottles in use has been sufficient on most days

to satisfy the needs of all the humming birds present. Bach new

bottle has been added by way of an experiment. The first one was

placed in an artificial flower painted to imitate a nasturtium, mainly

yellow in color ; the second flower in form and color closely resem¬

bled a tiger lily. The experiment with the yellow and the red flowers

was to test a supposedly erroneous theory which had been published



