Experiments in Feeding Hummingbirds 155 



an arc of a circle with a sort of pendulum-like motion. Some- 

 times they clinch and fall to the earth where the struggle 

 is continued for many seconds. So jealous are they lest 

 others share the syrup that they seem more anxious to fight 

 than to drink. When seven are present they are very diffi- 

 cult to count, and appear to be three-fold that number. We 

 have read accounts of forty or a hundred Hummingbirds 

 hovering about a tree or bush. Clearly these numbers must 

 have been estimates, probably large ones, too, any one must 

 believe, who has made sure that only seven birds have cre- 

 ated 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 Hummingbirds present. 

 Each new bottle has been added by way of an experiment. 

 The first one was placed in an artificial flower painted to imi- 

 tate a nasturtium, mainly yellow in color; the second flower 

 in form and color closely resembled a tiger-lily. The experi- 

 ment with the yellow and the red flowers was to test a sup- 

 posedly erroneous theory which had been published to the 

 effect that Hummingbirds show a preference for red flow- 

 ers. In further proof of the fallacy of this statement the 

 third flower, shaped like the nasturtium, was painted green, 

 and was placed in a bed of green plants which at that time 

 bore no blossoms. It was pronounced by other people to be 

 "exactly the color of the surrounding foliage." It was 

 staked out and filled on August 5, 1909, when no Humming- 

 bird was in sight, but in about ten minutes some of the spe- 

 cies had come, and fifteen minutes later one was drinking 

 from the bottle in this green flower. 



It was then suggested by my sister, Dr. E. Amelia Sher- 

 man, that I try a bottle without an encircling flower. The 

 problem of supporting a bottle without an artificial flower 

 was solved in this way : The bottle was encased in a piece 

 of unbleached muslin, enough of the cloth extending beyond 

 the bottom of the bottle to allow the tacking of it to a stick. 

 The support of the bottle in a position slightly up from the 



