MY HUMMING BIRDS. 
123 
same time uttering a curious, reverberating, sharp bleat, 
somewhat similar to the quivering twang of a dead twig, yet 
also so much like the real bleat of some small quadruped, 
that for some time I searched the ground instead of the air 
for the actor in the scene. At other times the males were 
seen darting up high in the air and whirling about each 
other in great anger and with much velocity. After these 
manoevres the aggressor returned to the same dead twig, 
where for days he regularly took his station with all the 
courage and angry vigilance of a king-bird. The angry hiss- 
ing or bleating note of this species seems something like 
wM a {! t tshvee^ tremulously uttered as it whirls and sweeps 
through the air, like a musket ball, accompanied also by 
something like the whirr of the Night-IIawk. On the 29th 
of May I found a nest of this species in a forked branch of 
the Nootka Bramble, Rubus Nuthanus. The female was sit- 
ting on two eggs of the same shape and color as those of the 
common species. The nest, also, was perfectly similar, but 
somewhat deeper. As I approached, the female came hover- 
ing round the nest, and soon after, when all was still, she re- 
sumed her place contentedly." 
Dr. Townsend's note is as follows — 
" Nootka Sound Humming Birds, Trochilus rufus^ Ah- 
puets-rinne of the Chinooks. On a clear day the male may 
be seen to rise to a great height in the air, and descend in- 
stantly near the earth, then mount again to the same altitude 
as at first, performing in the evolution the half of a large circle. 
During the descent it emits a strange and astonishingly loud 
note, which can be compared to nothing but the rubbing to- 
gether of the limbs of trees during a high wind. I heard this 
singular note repeatedly last spring and summer, but did not 
then discover to what it belonged. I did not suppose it be 
a bird at all, and least of all a humming bird. The observer 
thinks it almost impossible that so small a creature can be 
capable of producing so much sound. I have never observ- 
ed this habit on a dull or cloudy day." 
