156 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 85 



horizontal was furnished by a piece of leather with a hole 

 in it through which the bottle was thrust, and the leather 

 was then nailed to the stick. In this arrangement the most 

 vivid imagination can find no suggestion of a flower. It 

 was put out on August 8, and in forty-three minutes a Hum- 

 mingbird was drinking from it. The bottle was then moved 

 from proximit}^ to the artificial nasturtium and tiger-lily, 

 and a Hummingbird found it in its new location in thirty- 

 two minutes. This place about eight feet from the artificial 

 flowers has been its position in the four succeeding summers. 

 In Jul}^, 1911, two more flowerless bottles were added to the 

 group, making six in all. For convenience in referring to 

 them the flowerless bottles will be called by numbers 4, 5 

 and 6. 



Bottle No. 4 had not been long in use before it was noted 

 that the Hummingbirds showed preference for it, while the 

 nasturtium was sought least of all. This seemed due to the 

 deep insetting- of the bottle in the flower, which caused the 

 birds to brush against its lower leaves, an unpleasant ex- 

 perience when sticky S3aup adhered to it. For this reason 

 the filling of the nasturtium was sometimes omitted for sev- 

 eral days whereupon the Hummingbirds soon ceased to visit 

 it, although drinking regularly from the tiger-lily a few 

 inches away. When the filling was resumed the birds re- 

 turned to it as they had been accustomed. 



In the fourth season of experiments the bottle held by the 

 green flower was put out when the others were, but was not 

 filled for six weeks. During that time Hummingbirds were 

 present and drinking on twenty-three days. It is safe to 

 say that they were seen drinking fully four hundred times 

 from the other bottles, but never once Avere they seen to ap- 

 proach the green flower. The first morning it was filled four 

 of them were about the yard and one drank from this flower 

 two minutes after the filling. The following year (1911) 

 after dark on July 14 the green-flower bottle was set in its 

 bed of green and was left empty for a few days. About 

 noon on the 17th one of the Ruby-throats visited it, thrust- 



