RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD. 367 



to them in the day, and my night dreams have not unfrequently carried me to their 

 native forests in the distant country of America." Their diminutive size, the dazzling 

 splendor of their plumage, their unique and enchantingly beautiftil flight, and their con- 

 stant encompassment by the most strikingly colored flowers cannot fail to excite the 

 admiration of all who see these "fairy flower birds." Being a very common summer 

 sojourner wherever flowers abound, on the woodland border and in the meadow as well 

 as in the garden, the Ruby-3"hroated Hummingbird is familiar everywhere. 



Like all the birds of its family, it unites the beauty and delicacy of a resplendent 

 insect with the organization and intelligence of a bird. None of our feathered favorites 

 will compare with it in the smallness of its size, and in the peculiarity and rapidity of its 

 flight. The dazzling beauty and variety of its color, and especially the changeableness of 

 its hues when flitting from flower to flower, are no less striking and admirable than its 

 small size. The golden-green back and ruby-colored throat of the male surpass the hues 

 of the most beautiful gems. A brilliant metallic lustre greatly enhances the splendor of 

 the colors. As in the other species, only one color is seen at a time, but every change 

 in the bird's position brings a different hue of the ruby-colored throat in view. It is • 

 really a bird of sunshine and flowers. In dark weather the colors are not very refulgent ; 

 only when the beams of the sun strike them, they show their indescribable brilliancy. 



The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only representative of this large family in 

 eastern North America, being found from Florida and Texas northward to the 57th 

 degree of latitude, and from the Atlantic Ocean west to the Plains. In this immense 

 territory it is everywhere a well-known and in many places an abundant bird. It does 

 not arrive in its summer quarters until the season is well advanced and flowers are 

 abundant. In south-eastern Texas it is common by the middle of April; at Freistatt, 

 south-western Missouri, it rarely appears before May 2. By May 15 it is first seen at 

 Milwaukee, Wis., usually becoming abundant when the horse chestnut trees are in full 

 bloom. When this fairy among our birds arrives, the days are alw^ays mild and sunny; 

 gardens, woodlands, and meadows are adorned with numberless flowers, the air swarms 

 with insects, and bird song resounds on all sides. At this time we usually see it first 

 among the arbors of honey-suckles and beds of flowers, poising itself in the air for 

 several seconds, with a humming noise made by the rapid motion of the wings, thrusting 

 its bill and long tongue into the flowers in search of food, and then suddenly darting 

 off" with a rapidity so great that the eye can not follow it. 



Only those perfectly familiar with this lovely creature can form an adequate idea 

 of its surpassing loveliness. Yet all its beauty cannot arrest our attention in such a 

 degree as its incomparable flight, a flight that is in every respect different from that of 

 any other bird. It has a slight resemblance to the flight of the hawk-moths or 

 sphinxes, and it is often confounded by the superficial observer with these insects. 

 As these moths are of a crepuscular habit, only seiarching the flowers in the twilight 

 of evening, while the Hummingbird is a child of the sun, rarely being seen after sunset, 

 it is easily distinguished from these insects. While soaring from flower to flower, the 

 tremulous motions of the wings are so rapid that the eye is unable to follow them. 

 This rapid vibration produces a humming sound, like the spinning of a top, and has 

 given these birds the name by which they are designated. The bird flies forward and 



