THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD. 335 



gather new-flowing sweets but to see what flies the sweets themselves have gath- 

 ered. If the bird extracted honey to any great extent — it does some — it would 

 be rifling the bait from its own traps. Again the bird is not footless, as some 

 suppose, but it spends a good deal of time perching on exposed limbs, from 

 which it may dart, Flycatcher fashion, after passing insects. 



I am almost inclined to deny the report also that this tiny creature is song- 

 less. For in addition to the squeaks of excitement or anger, which all have 

 heard, have we not seen an impetuous gallant dashing through the air in great 

 rainbow mazes, before his lady love, deinurely seated ; and have we not heard 

 him giving cry to a perfect ecstacy of chippering and suckling notes of such 

 exquisite fineness that the human ear could only catch the crests of sound? 

 Song is a relative term, to be sure ; but to accuse the Hummingbird of being 

 voiceless, is a bit of injustice. Ask the lady. 



Hop-o'-my-Thumb has, I am sorry tO' say, a flashing temper to match his 

 throat. Rivals charge at each other with an impetuosity which. makes us 

 fearful that they will be spitted on each other's beaks. Other birds a hundred 

 times the size must sometimes suffer from the little tyrant's spleen, but to see 

 a Hawk cross the sky by jerks and plunges in a vain effort to avoid this tiny 

 persecutor is not a wholly unedifying sight. 



The Hummingbird is full of curiosity and not, perhaps, without some 

 sense of humor. Else why should one of them down in Washington County 

 have hovered for full twenty seconds in mock uncertainty within eighteen 

 inches of the author's nose? It was only honest suriburn, and I resent the 

 bird's insinuation. 



The fairy's nest is commonly saddled to an obliquely descending branch of 

 an orchard or forest tree. It is a tiny tuft of vegetable down bound together 

 and lashed to its support by a wealth of spider webbing and covered externally 

 with lichens. When finished it is nothing more than an elfin bump on a log, 

 but the unwary visits of the mother discover a secret otherwise profound. She 

 sits upon two eggs like homeopathic pills — so dainty, indeed, that she herself 

 must needs dart off the nest every now and then and ho^er at some distance to 

 admire them. Both parents are valiant in defense of the nest, but the practical 

 support of the little family seems to fall chiefly upon the mother. The young 

 are fed by regurgitation— "a frightful looking act," as Bradford Torrey says. 



