Experiments in Feeding Hummingbirds 157 



ing in her bill; the bottle was then filled for the first time 

 that year, and in a half minute a bird was drinking from it. 

 To this is added a transcript from my journal bearing date 

 of July 17, 1912; "About 9 a. m. before I had put out any 

 syrup a Hummingbird was dashing from bottle to bottle and 

 tried the green-flower one. It was bent over in the green 

 foliage, and certainly has had no syrup in it for six 

 weeks or longer. I filled it after I saw the bird visit it, and 

 she came again to drink." 



The new bottles No. 5 and No. 6 covered like No. 4 with 

 white muslin and nailed to a weather-beaten fence picket 

 were put out after dark on July 23, 1911, but neither was 

 filled for one week. The next morning about eight o'clock 

 a Hummingbird was searching one of these bottles for sus- 

 pected sweets ; four such visits were noted in one day and 

 on several other occasions. At the end of the week the fill- 

 ing of No. 5 began but no syrup was put in No. 6 for two 

 years. During these years a record was kept of each time a 

 Hummingbird was seen tO' visit and search this unfilled bot- 

 tle, and the total number was fifteen in addition to those 

 visits already mentioned. 



Thus far this writing has been confined tO' a description of 

 the things seen; no theories have been advanced, no deduc- 

 tions have been made, no hypotheses have been carried to 

 their logical conclusion. The first deduction offered is, that 

 at the beginning of the experiments in 1907 the artificial nas- 

 turtium may have led the Hummingbird to explore its depths, 

 and finding its contents to her taste she returned to it. Other 

 birds may have found the syrup there in the same way, yet 

 it seems more likely that most of them were led to the bot- 

 tles by seeing another drinking. This probably was the case 

 with the Catbirds that have drunk from the bottles on sev- 

 eral occasions, although they have found it an inconvenient 

 performance. The same may be true of a pair of Chicka- 

 dees that drank as long as they remained with us. They 

 clung to the stiff leaves of the tiger-lily and found no diffi- 

 culty in the way of drinking. Only one Hummingbird 



