GOATSUCKERS, HUMMING-BIRDS, ETC. 245 



and Central America. Many of us look upon the humming- 

 bird as a migrant of the flower bed and gardens, where they 

 may be seen poised in air, moving their tiny wings so rapidly 

 as to show only a blurred outline. The musical hum of the 

 vibrating wings gives rise to the name. \Vhile thus poised 

 it inserts the slender, tube-like bill into the long blossoms of 

 the trumpet-creeper and other flowers for the nectar. Their 

 fondness for the honey often tempts the little bird to nest in 

 shade trees or saplings in close proximity to gardens, though 

 we are apt to encounter these birds in our timbered areas far 

 from the habitation of man, where they are earning their 

 livelihood, as all hummers originally did, by capturing 

 minute insects. 



Their note is a kind of squeak, or chatter, less musical 

 than the hum of its wings. The Rocky and Sierra Nevada 

 mountains of North America are the homes of many vari- 

 eties of humming-birds, all of which are migratory, and in 

 some instances they may be found breeding in colonies. The 

 males of the various species are conspicuously colored about 

 the head with some shade of red or purple. 



Ruby-throated humming-birds are aggressive about their 

 nesting sites and frequently disclose the presence of their 

 abode by buzzing about the head of the intruder. I have 

 seen the females fly with full force to about twelve or sixteen 

 inches above the nest, when the flight is suddenly checked 

 and the bird descends like a parachute onto her nest. While 

 the ruby-throat is the only humming-bird nesting east of the 

 Mississippi, the rivoli wanders east of the Mississippi after 

 nesting. 



The nest of the ruby-throated is a marvel in bird archi- 



