RUBY-THROATED HUMMING BIRD. 253 



Having heard several persons remark that these little creatures had 

 been procured with less injury to their plumage, by shooting them with 

 water, I was tempted to make the experiment, having been in the habit 

 of killing them either with remarkably small shot, or with sand. How- 

 ever, finding that even when within a few paces, I seldom brought one to 

 the ground when I used water instead of shot, and was moreover obliged 

 to clean my gun after every discharge, I abandoned the scheme, and feel 

 confident that it can never have been used with material advantage. I 

 have frequently secured some by employing an insect-net, and were this 

 machine used with dexterity, it would afford the best means of procuring 

 Humming Birds. 



I have represented ten of these pretty and most interesting birds, in 

 various positions, flitting, feeding, caressing each other, or sitting on the 

 slender stalks of the trumpet-flower and pluming themselves. The diver- 

 sity of action and attitude thus exhibited, may, I trust, prove sufficient to 

 present a faithful idea of their appearance and manners. A figure of the 

 nest you will find elsewhere. The nest is generally placed low, on the 

 horizontal branch of any kind of tree, seldom more than twenty feet from 

 the ground. They are far from being particular in this matter, as I have 

 often found a nest attached by one side only to a twig of a rose-bush, 

 currant, or the strong stalk of a rank weed, sometimes in the middle of the 

 forest, at other times on the branch of an oak, immediately over the road, 

 and again in the garden close to the walk. 



Trochilus CoLrBHis, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 191 Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. i. 



p. 312 — Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of the United States, p. 98. 

 Red-thkoated Humming Bird, Lath. Synops. vol. ii. p. 769. 

 Humming Bird, Trochilus Colubris, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 26. PI. 10. 



fig. 3. Male ; fig. 4. Female. 



Adult Male. Plate XLVII. Fig. 1, 1, 1, 1. 



Bill long, straight, subulate, depressed at the base, acute; upper 

 mandible rounded, its edges overlapping. Nostrils basal, linear. Tongue 

 very extensile, filiform, divided towards the end into two filaments. Feet 

 very short and feeble ; tarsus slender, shorter than the middle toe, partly 

 feathered ; fore toes united at the base ; claws curved, compressed, acute. 



Plumage compact, imbricated above and on the throat, with metallic 

 lustre, blended beneath. Wings long, narrow, a little incurved at the 



