RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD. 371 



Robins are, but they are among themselves by no means peaceful and gentle creatures. 

 On the contrary, they are always fighting if one encroaches upon the domain of the 

 other. They resent every such attempt with a furious assault. In the fall, when the 

 young are able to fly and a number of Hummingbirds often sojourn in a locality rich in 

 flowers, they are constantly quarreling. One cold and gloomy Sunday afternoon, Sept. 9, 

 1894, while my sister and myself were sitting at the window engaged in reading and 

 observing numerous migrating birds in the garden, two Hummingbirds were noticed on 

 a Clematis coccinea growing on a veranda scarcely twenty feet away. They frequently 

 perched on overhanging shoots, stretching their long wings and trimming their feathers. 

 The one was engaged near the top of the clematis, often taking a rest of ten to fifteen 

 minutes before it resumed its soaring from flower to flower. The other began to search 

 for insects near the ground. Often it perched near a flower. or hung on one, without 

 using its wings, thrusting its long bill into the vase-like tube. Then again it resumed 

 its search in the usual manner. When it came too near its comrade sitting and search- 

 ing near the top of the vine, a fierce fight always began, so that both repeatedly tumbled 

 down into the grass. Finally the intruder always had to leave, but it returned again 

 and again, and again and again the encounter was repeated. This I observed the whole 

 afternoon. When I at last approached the bird that rested in the top of the clematis, 

 it turned its head to me, but it did not fly away until I touched the vine. Then it took 

 wing and I did not see another Hummingbird during that year." 



By the middle of September most of these birds have left southern Wisconsin, 

 even those coming from the Fur Countries in the far North have passed south. These 

 lovely and diminutive creatures traverse a distance in their migrations which appears 

 almost impossible to birds of such smallness and delicacy, many individuals moving as 

 far south as Veragua, U. S. of Colombia, immediately north of the Isthmus of Panama. 

 A considerable number pass the winter as far north as southern Florida. "It is thus 

 evident," says Prof. Ridgway, "that, notwithstandia£tJ>hsjr diminutive size, some indi- 

 viduals of this species perform an annual migration of at least twenty-eight degrees of 

 latitude, equivalent to nearly 2,000 statute miles." 



NAMES: Ruby-throated Hummingbiru, Flower-bird. — Rubinkolibri (German). 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: TROCHILUS COLUBRIS Linne (1758). 



DESCRIPTION: "Tail ih the male deeply forked; the feathers all narrow lanceolate-acute. In the female 

 slightly rounded and emarginate; the feathers broader, though pointed. Male, uniform metallic-green 

 above; a ruby-red gorget (blackish near the bill) with no conspicuous ruflf; a white color on the 

 jugulum; sides of body, greenish; tail-feathers, uniformly brownish-violet. Female, without the red on 

 the throat; the tail rounded and emarginate ; the inner feathers shorter than the outer; the tail-feathers 

 banded with black; the outer tipped with white; no rufous or cinnamon on the tail in either sex. 

 "Length, 3.25 inches; wing, 1.60; tail, 1.25; bill, .65 inches." (B. B. & R., II, p. 448.) 



