104 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



that of a ruby-throated hummingbird that was 

 knocked hmp and helpless, but soon after being 

 picked up he revived sufficiently to fly. 



Very late in the fall I once found on my front 

 porch the dead body of a ruby-crowned kinglet, 

 a tiny pinch of bone, muscle, and delicately col- 

 oured feathers, with a little dab of red on the crest. 

 The bird was the first of the kind I ever had had in 

 my hands, as kinglets live farther north and come 

 to my locality only as winter migrants. Because 

 he was so rare and so beautiful I sent this bird to a 

 firm of taxidermists, considered reliable; but when 

 I called for my bird no one knew anything about 

 him. I took the pains to trace the firm's signature 

 for the receipt of the package containing him, 

 on the books of the express company, but still 

 they insisted that they had not seen him. Un- 

 doubtedly some collector paid them far more for 

 his mounted body than they would have dared 

 ask me for doing the work, since they would scarcely 

 have signed for an express package and failed to 

 open it. 



The largest bird that I ever found dead from 

 striking the glass was a woodcock. Between these 

 extremes, perhaps half a dozen other birds have 

 lost their lives on these windows, while repeatedly 

 there is evidence on the glass that it has been 

 struck by some bird in flight, injured so slightly 

 that it has soon flown away. 



While about my work in the oil fields one morn- 



