BIRDS OF NEW YORK 175 



bees and larger moths. They are also valuable neighbors of the helpless 

 inhabitants of garden and orchard. Although they are so slight in size, 

 they attack fearlessly and effectively marauding crows and hawks which 

 approach their domains, and their brilliant and interesting presei;ice, aside 

 from any service they render, is ample reward for protecting them. 



Archilochus colubris (Linnaeus) 

 Ruby-throated Hummingbird 



Plate 66 



Trochilus colubris Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. lo. 1758. 1:120 



DeKay. Zool. of N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 46, fig. 87 

 Archilochus colubris A. 0. U. Check List. Ed. 3. igio. p. 202. No. 428 



archilochus, perhaps named from the Greek poet; colubris, probably from the- 

 barbarous name colibri 



Description. Our smallest bird. Wings long; bill long and slender. 

 Male: Upper parts bright metallic green; wings and tail fuscous, tinged 

 with purplish; throat, metallic ruby red changing to black and burnished 

 gold as the angle of reflection varies, the ruby throat-patch bordered 

 below with whitish ; the rest of under parts dusky tinged with greenish on 

 the sides. Female has the throat whitish instead of ruby. Young resemble 

 the female, but throat feathers spotted with dusky. 



Length c? 3.5 inches, 9 3.85; extent 4.6; wing cf 1.6, 9 1.8; tail 

 (f 1.25, 9 1.2; bill c? .55--65> 9 -TS- 



Distribution. The Ruby-throated hummingbird inhabits eastern 

 North America from Saskatchewan and Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, 

 westward to North Dakota and Texas, and spends the winter from southern 

 Florida arid Louisiana to Mexico and Panama. In New York it is a 

 common summer resident in all parts of the State from the more cultivated 

 portions of southern New York to the densest forests of the Adirondack 

 region. While surveying the country about Mt Marcy and the other 

 elevated peaks of the Adirondacks we found this species nearly as common 

 as in the orchards and groves of western New York and noticed several 

 breeding pairs in the forests of the Bartlett range, Boreas pond, Mt Colvin 

 and the slopes of Mt Marcy at an elevation of 3500 feet. The humming- 

 bird arrives in New York from the 5th to the 12th of May in the warmer 



