The Anna Hummer 
modestly hiding in the depths of a bough, is performed with more circum¬ 
stance. The squayuck squeak, or screech, or squawk, is uttered, indeed, 
at the climax of one downward flight; but the curve of flight on this 
portion is slight and the speed terrific. It is the grandstand play for an 
audience of one. After each dash the speed king manages a quick re¬ 
covery and returns to hover for some moments over his enamorata, 
as if for applause. The chances are the lady isn’t handing out any 
bouquets today. Nothing daunted, the impetuous suitor ascends, 
almost vertically, with fiercely vibrant wings, swings over to a proper 
distance and repeats his dash. Birds do not perspire, but our hero 
evidently earns his bread by labors more strenuous than sweat of the 
brow. The coy minx in the grandstand, she knows how to appear quite 
indifferent, to be sure, but if she does not look out she will overplay the 
part. Bowles narrates an instance 1 where a swinking swain, outraged 
at last by the coldness of his lady love, paused before her, and gliding 
slowly up seized her rudely by the beak and dragged her highness head¬ 
long from the perch. 
It is thus undoubtedly that hearts are won, for I have witnessed 
the nuptials—tented all in a bower of oak-leaves. The nuptial kiss 
occurs as well in midair as upon an oaken bed, but always close to cover 
and always to a fierce accompaniment of squeaks in which both sexes 
participate. Indeed, so ingenuous are these happy children of nature 
that it is best not to be too inquisitive when one hears a fairy bedlam 
in the garden. 
The amours of the Anna Hummer have not always been conducted 
within the bounds of the species. As a result of these divagations, 
several hybrid forms have been recorded. The most famous is that 
between Calypte anna and Selasphorus alleni, once described as Sela- 
sphorus floresii Gould, of which four examples, all probably Californian, 
now exist in collections. Another, described from Santa Barbara, 
Archilochus violajugulum (Jeffries) probably represents a union of C. anna 
and Archilochus alexandri. Hybrids of Archilochus alexandri + Calypte 
costce and Selasphorus rufus + Stellula calliope have also been noted, but 
none of these unions appear to be fertile in the third generation, and 
they remain curious examples of misplaced affection, rather than phylo¬ 
genetic factors with which the scientist has to reckon. 
During the honeymoon Anna—Mrs. Anna now if you please—has 
contrived to slip away from her insistent lord and has spread a foundation 
of cobwebs over the bare shaft of some limb where she intends to rear 
her nest. The pappus of seeds, especially of the willow, and a dozen 
other sorts of vegetable down, are felted together and bound with cob- 
1 “The Condor,” Vol. XII., July, 1910, p. 126. 
939 
