198 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



and lets her attend to her family duties alone, leading- an easy, careless life in the 

 meantime. Although I have Avatched several nests of Hummingbirds containing 

 young for hours at a time, I have never yet seen a male feeding them. They 

 grow amazingly fast, and when about ten days old they are about as large as 

 the parents. Their bills, however, grow proportionally much slower than their 

 bodies. The young are fed by regurgitation. I have satisfied myself fully on 

 this point, and have seen the female insert her bill almost for its full length in 

 the throat of the nestlings, and watched her, with the aid of a strong glass, doing 

 so repeatedly. When not in search of food she broods the young or sits on the 

 rim of the nest preening her feathers. I believe two broods are frequently raised 

 in a season, occasionally three perhaps, as fresh eggs have been found as late as 

 Auo-ust 7. An old nest is sometimes occupied for several seasons and remodeled 

 each year; and should the nest and eggs be taken or destroyed, a second and 

 occasionally even a third and fourth attempt at nesting is made within about a 

 week, and sometimes these subsequent nests are built in the same tree again, 

 or in others close by. The birds become very much attached to a locality once 

 chosen for a home, and will return to it from year to year, not infrequently 

 building a new nest on the top of the last year's one, or alongside of it. The 

 female is very devoted to her young, and will occasionally resent an intruder's 

 presence by darting at his face. 



The eggs of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird are pure white in color; the 

 shell is close-grained, rather frail, and without luster. They are mostly elliptical 

 oval in shape, but occasionally a specimen approaches an elliptical ovate, one 

 end being somewhat smaller than the other. 



The average measurement of twenty-nine specimens in the United States 

 National Museum collection is 12.95 by 8.50 millimetres, or about 0.51 by 0.33 

 inch. The largest egg of this series measures 14.48 by 9.14 millimetres, or 0.57 

 by 0.36 inch; the smallest, 12.19 by 8.38 millimetres, or 0.48 by 0.33 inch. 



The type specimen, No. 26914 (PI. 1, Fig. 27), from a set of two eggs, was 

 taken by Dr. William L. Ralph, near Holland Patent, New York, on June 21, 

 1888, and represents an average egg of this species. 



69. Trochilus alexandri Bourcier and Mulsant. 



BLACK-CHINNED HUMMINGBIRD. 



Trochilus alexandri Bourcier and Mulsant, Annales Societe d' Agriculture de Lyon, IX, 



1846, 330. 



(B 102, 270, R 336, O 410, U 429.) 



Geographical range: Western North America; from the Pacific coast to the 

 Rocky Mountains; north to southern British Columbia, on both sides of the Cascades and 

 southern Alberta %; east to western Montana, western Colorado, New Mexico, and western 

 Texas; south through California and Arizona into northern Mexico; in winter to Lower 

 California, the valley of Mexico, and the State of Guerrero, Mexico. 



The Black-chinned Hummingbird, also known as the "Purple-throated" and 

 "Alexandre's" Hummingbird, is rather irregularly distributed throughout the 

 western United States, and, while exceedingly abundant in some localities, in 



