The Rufous Hummer 
depths of a somber fir tree. Or more pitiful still is the sight of shivering 
babies in mid-April, the air oozing moisture and the mother gone to 
search for food. But rufus would laugh at our solicitude; and as for 
hardship, he would say, Lead me to it! Hence it is, he ranges along the 
Cascade crests and ventures among the glaciers of the mighty Saint 
Elias Mountain. At Mount Wrangell he is 6i° north of the Equator, 
and his only peer in hardihood is the Chilean Fire-crown ( Eustephanus 
galeritus), who attains 55 0 south in Terra del Fuego. 
Perhaps it is the abounding conceit of the bird which carries it 
into such perilous places; but if so, the little spit-fire makes good all 
along the way. I thought I had seen Hummers before, some tens of 
thousands of them, but a vision seen on the flowery hills of Shandon 
(San Luis Obispo County), April 8, 1912, still stands apart in experience. 
The bird had been moving from flower to flower in the open sage, and came 
momentarily to rest on a sprig of greasewood. As I saw him quartering 
from the sun, the center of his gorget glanced molten gold, and his shoul¬ 
ders shot a living flame. As he turned about, his throat-piece darkened 
suddenly, but whenever it did shine, it was nothing less than cadmium or 
Saturn red. His back, also, was the very quintessence of rufous, almost 
flame, and I thought there could be nothing handsomer—until another, 
his equal, flashed up and displaced him on the same twig. 
As the retina of the eye retains for some moments the impression 
of an object over-bright, so memory, or consciousness, has retained so 
vivid an impression of this bird of passage, that we have until lately 
supposed it to be a common breeding bird of California. There was 
special reason for this forty years ago, before the common summer 
resident, Selasplioriis alleni, had been distinguished, or, as it were, dis¬ 
sected out of our blurred impression of rufus-alleni. But the dawning 
knowledge of the presence of alleni did not work a speedy cure. Pre¬ 
conceptions blinded the most expert. Thus, C. Hart Merriam could 
say: 1 2 “The commonest Hummingbirds of Shasta, breeding apparently, 
from the lower edge of Shasta firs to timberline, though it is possible 
that those seen at high altitudes had moved up to feed from the painted 
cups in the heather meadows after the breeding season was over. At 
Wagon Camp where they were abundant in J uly and early August, they 
seemed to feed chiefly from the scarlet painted cup ( Castilleja miniata)." 
Notice that the breeding is inferential and that the actual dates are 
July and August. The true condition is set forth by Dr. Grinnell: 1 
“Common migrant the whole length of the State west of the deserts; 
in spring through the valley and foothill regions of the Pacific slope, 
1 N. A. Fauna No. 16, Washington, 1899. P- 117. 
2 Avifauna No. 11, “A Distributional List of the Birds of California.” 
932 
